John Roderick's less inclined to play the role of the cross country troubadour in the heady days, but the indie rock elder statesman has slipped quite comfortably into the role of podcast philosopher. Come sit with us, on his leather couch.

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Relish: My Life in the Kitchen
By Lucy Knisley
First Second

If you find a more delightful book than Relish this year, please let me know. I’ll say right now that the odds are pretty slim. Lucy Knisley shuffled together a memoir and a cookbook into a cohesive collection of short stories that illustrate her life in food, the product of two parents who seared food obsessions into her DNA. The highlight has to be the tale of adolescent rebellion colored with pink hair and Lucky Charms -- a processed food defiance against epicurean parents. Can’t say I actually went so far as cooking any of the recipes contained here -- after five years in this apartment, I’m not entirely sure my pre-war oven even works -- but the tale of traveling to Mexico with a best friend who’s forced to leave a $200 stash of adult magazines behind a airport toilet, that stuff’s universal.

My Dirty Dumb Eyes
By Lisa Hanawalt
Drawn & Quarterly

I don’t know whether it’s Lisa or her publishers who deserve a dressing down for not running with the suggested title What We Draw About When We Draw About Sex Bugs, but after reading that in the hilarious fine print of the book’s penultimate page, I just can’t say I’m so into My Dirty Dumb Eyes as a name. But that’s really my chief complaint here. Hanawalt’s one of the funniest people going in comics these days, and just about every story in this collection is a testament to that fact. Heck, she’s even managed to tame the boiling hatred for lists that this post-McSweeney’s internet world has instilled in me. And I’m not sure what the standalone painting of Superman and Wolverine holding hands is doing in here, but it’s seriously making me consider getting a first tattoo.

Side note: I mentioned to someone at D&Q that I was planning on taking the book with me on a trip as sub-10,000 feet reading, and was helpfully discouraged from reading it around small children, so I figure I’d pass that life lesson along. Whatever you do, don’t let this thing with 100 yards of a school -- unless you’re eager to teach some impressionable young minds where dick lizards really come from.

Very Casual
By Michael DeForge
Koyama Press

Speaking of exercises in public health, here’s a thing that probably shouldn’t be read by anyone -- or at least not those prone to nausea and dramatic fainting. Michael DeForge’s work exists in a universe where the creative overlap between William Burroughs and David Cronenberg is the biological fabric of the universe. You know the drill, parasitic worm deer, psychedelic snowman meat slices. It’s a world where amorphous monster blob indie rock bands are the norm. Also, Aunt May and Dr. Octopus are deeply in love, much to Spider-man’s chagrin. Very Casual is always fascinating, mostly grotesque and in the case of the biker gang with cartoon character helmets, actually pretty touch in the end.

Everything Together
By Sammy Harkham
Picturebox

I find myself looking for big takeaways here, but Sammy Harkham seems to find most of his stories -- and humor -- in the void. Like Poor Sailor, about halfway through the book, which closes on a panel of a one-armed man building a house next to the grave of a wife he abandoned for adventures at sea. Okay, well, maybe the takeaway there is “don’t abandon your wife for adventures at sea.” But still, the cartoonist is far more interested in meditations than resolution -- but even devoid of greater surface meaning, Everything Together is chock full of poignance and uncomfortable hilarity. And bonus: there’s also cartoons about Frank Santoro’s father and Dan Clowes’ dog eating Kevin Huizenga’s hand. Where else are you gonna get that?

From "Everything Together"

Other Stuff By Peter Bagge. Fantagraphics

Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this one -- well before Fantagraphics ever announced the thing, and certainly Other Stuff doesn’t disappoint. In fact, the mere bringing together of Bagge’s Murry Wilson strips is worth the price of entrance alone. In fact, Peter and assorted Fantagraphics employees, if you’re reading this (as I suspect some of you are), I will be the first in line to buy a graphic novel-length biography of the Wilson family patriarch and self-appointed musical genius drawn in Bagge’s signature style. Ditto for the assorted liberty taking rock and roll tales of folks like Sinatra and Sly Stone.

And then there are the collaborations with R. Crumb, Alan Moore, Dan Clowes and the like, many of which I already own in some form or other, though my self-diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder thanks Bagge’s publishers for collecting them all into on handy volume. It’s great to see all of this stuff together, particular those Hate b-stories that fell through the cracks of Fanta’s excellent “Buddy Does...” collections. Like we really needed another testament to Peter Bagge’s greatness.

Letting It Go By Miriam Katin. Drawn & Quarterly

I had the strange experience of running into Art Spiegelman on the streets of Cologne, Germany over the summer. Strange because we were there for very different reasons, and I’d had no idea what brought the cartoonist to the outdoor mini-mall built around a centuries old church that is Cologne. Stranger still was the experience of seeing him speak at a local museum upon his invitation, monitoring how the audience reacted to the artist’s “holocaust denial” cartoons. And while I’d certainly never dream of equating experience as a Jew born in America toward the end of the 20th century to those of Katin, an artist born in Hungary during the second World War, I’ve some small sense of appreciation for the baggage we bring to our own concepts of modern Germany.

As its name poetically implies, Letting Go is an attempt to release some of that, an act she understandably flatly refuses on hearing her sons decision to move to Berlin. Katin illustrates life after that decision in color pencil sketches, telling the tale of daily minutia, reflection and the occasional flashback, all well aware that, for better and worse, lifelong opinions rarely change overnight.

Reich #9 By Elijah Brubaker. Sparkplug

I’m sad to say that I fell off a bit with Reich. While I commend Brubaker’s commitment to the floppy (and Sparkplug’s commitment to issuing his efforts), the publication schedule hasn’t made it particularly easy to keep up. It’s worth the effort, of course. The cartoonist has taken on the life of one of the most interesting figures in psychoanalysis, holding little back in the process. This ninth issue finds the Freud protege entering the final decade of his life, at odds with peer, journalists and the government thanks to radical, metaphysical beliefs.

Brubaker has no interest in catching you up, though a quick visit to Wikipedia should do the trick, though, really, it would be silly not to just start from the beginning -- the cartoonist’s vaguely cubist style does some wonderful things with Reich’s mad science fashion sense. And while I’ve been hassling both the artist and his publisher to put out a collection for a few years now (I suspect the last 10 years of the analyst’s comics life will have to play out first), let’s embrace the dying art of the paper serial while it’s still with us.

The Frantastic Four By Sam Spina. Kilgore

I pulled this (if memory serves) of the shelf of the wonderful Needles and Pens on a recentish trip to San Francisco, not at all expecting the tale of alien encounters to climax with a break dancing competition. Needless to say, it was a pleasant surprise. The art has a sketchily cartoony, Graham Annable-esque feel to it, and the story would fit nicely in amongst that new brand of quirky Cartoon Network daytime programming that always seems to be on when I check into hotels these days. Needless to say, I hope it’s not the last we’ll be seeing of the celery monster and his ilk.

I pitched Boing Boing on a piece extolling the virtues of rabbit ownership a while ago, pulling together some testimonials from folks who, like myself, have eschewed the predictable worlds of dog and cats for a long-eared friend. I went back and forth a little bit, with regards to the timing of such a piece. Would it be a bit too on-the-nose to have it go up right around Easter, when their kind are all over the drugstores and advertising break, hawking cream-filled eggs with a litany of chicken sounds.

Fact of the matter is, however, that there's really no better time of year for such a thing. See, in spite of the springtime celebration of bunny-kind, there's a bit of tragedy surrounding the holiday, with shelters overflowing with unwanted rabbits purchased by parents on a whim, alongside baskets full of plastic grass and hollowed chocolates. I was told precisely this when I adopted Sylvia [above] from a kill shelter in Harlem. That was six years ago, which would put her around eight or nine, if the estimates of the people who found her abandoned in Marcus Garvey Park are to be believed.

That would make her old, certainly, but not elder. Properly cared for, these guys and ladies can live as long as many dogs. Syl sleeps in my kitchen (also my office -- this is New York City, mind) in a puppy pen, a short octagonal fence designed to keep new dogs from chewing all your worldly belongings. She's litter-trained and subsists largely on fresh vegetables and hay that I have shipped to my house in five-pound boxes from a guy who calls himself "Farmer Dave." She's the quietest roommate I've ever had in this godforsaken city, save for those times when she playfully tosses her toys around. And when it gets warm enough outside, she gets free range of my tiny Queens backyard (with adult supervision, mind), where she just binkies up the joint. It's a pretty good deal.

I could go on like this, naturally. Instead, I've opted to turn the floor over to some fellow fans, who, if all goes according to plan, will help convince you think twice about walking past the small animals room at your local shelter. At the very least, it's a good excuse to look at a bunch of pictures of rabbits on the internet. Enjoy.

Garth Ennis

Rabbit: Hazel, 11 years

The rabbit is a top quality animal and makes an excellent pet. The best piece of advice I can give to anyone thinking about adopting is to research the subject thoroughly beforehand, and make sure they know what they're getting into. Most preconceived notions of rabbits are inaccurate: they should not in fact be kept in hutches outdoors, and large quantities of carrots are actually bad for them. They're quite nervous creatures, so children need to be taught to treat them gently and with respect.

As for Hazel, she has lived to the ripe old age of eleven (about 110 in human years) because we keep her indoors in a large enough space for her to run around, feed her mostly on greens and hay with just a few carrots, and take her for annual check-ups at the vet. Another piece of advice- try to find a vet with an actual rabbit specialist, like Symphony Vet on 96th St. She remains in excellent health and is just as lively as she ever was.

She and her brother Fiver- who checked out a couple of years ago- were of course named after the rabbits in Watership Down. Great book, even better movie- but make sure you see the 1978 version, not the cutesy-pie remake from 1999.

Jacq Cohen, Fantagraphics

Rabbits: Nico and Lou are The Velvet Bunderground, three-years-old.

Valiant, four-year-old male. Aaron, two-year-old male.

I got my very first rabbit in college. Her name was Olive and she was the most punk rock bunny to ever live. Olive and I moved from the dorms at UC Santa Cruz, to flop houses, to punk houses in several different cities along the West Coast. When I started working in comics, she chewed her way through two of the three publishing companies that I worked for. She passed away at the age of seven. It took me 2 years to recover from her passing. But, while at the Humane Society with a friend (who was adopting a cat), I fell in love with The Velvet Bunderground, Nico & Lou. They were the start of my new rabbit family.

After a few months, I found Valiant on PetFinder.com. He was so broken, I just wanted to save him. As you can see in the photo, he only has 1.25 ears. Valiant also has back leg weakness and constant vertigo. In my research for how to properly care for a special needs rabbit, I came across Special Bunny ( specialbunny.org) a local Seattle rescue focusing of rabbits with disabilities. I started volunteering and it has changed my life. Caring for special needs rabbits is so rewarding. No one appreciates attention more than a bunny that you've nursed back to health. That's how Aaron has come into my life. His front legs are paralyzed. He is technically in "permanent foster care" with me, meaning that Special Bunny will continue to help pay for his medial bills. We are currently building a custom wheelchair for Aaron. I'll keep all you BoingBoing readers posted on how Aaron's front-end wheelchair comes along.

Rabbits are the 3rd most common house pets, and the most misunderstood. They have a wide range of personalities and habits. If treated and taught properly, they can be litter box trained and can do tricks. If you adopt a rescue rabbit, the people who you adopt from can help you find the right rabbit for your household. Also, adopting a rabbit makes you endlessly cool with ladies. Trust me people, girls like girls/boys who adopt rabbits!

PROTIP: Trust Oxbow for timothy hay and food pellets. If you want to make a rabbit endless love you, parsley is their jam! Do you want to spend the rest of your life alone? Neither does your rabbit! Bond your bunny to another bunny friend. PetFinder is like OKCupid for rabbits.

Clare Sanders & Alec Longstreth

Rabbits: Patty and Selma, six-years-old [Image by Gabby Schulz]

My housemates and I saw some cartoon rabbits on TV and thought they were really cute, so we started talking about getting rabbits. I did some research about rabbits as pets at the library and then after discussing it some more with my roommates we eventually went down to the Oakland Animal Shelter and picked out a bonded pair of rabbits.

They are a great low-key pet. You don't have to walk them like a dog, and they won't knock all your stuff over like a cat. They are endlessly cute and entertaining to watch, and very nice to pet. Our rabbits help us eat more healthfully because we buy more vegetables which we share with them. If you're going to get a rabbit, get two! As long as they get along and bond, they will keep each other company and help clean each other. It's also twice as cute when they cuddle up together.

Shawna Gore, Stumptown Comics

Rabbits: Roxy (seven-years-old), Billie Jean (two-years-old)

Right now I have Roxy — a miniature lop who is about seven years old (adopted after she was offered for free on Craigslist when she was retired as a 4-H breeder), and Billie Jean — an American Silver Fox (aka a domestically bred "meat rabbit") who is maybe two years old. She was found in the trash area behind a bar in downtown Portland last Easter Sunday, and a friend of mine who works at the bar called me to see if I would take her. Just before Thanksgiving this past year, our little boy bunny Ali died — we adopted him five years ago, after he was rescued from a notorious rabbit hoarder in Portland in 2007, and he was Roxy's bonded partner.

I adopted my first pair from the Humane Society in 2003 after meeting a few other pet rabbits (and visiting with a yard bunny who lived in my neighborhood). I've had sleep-related anxiety most of my life, and one of my relaxation techniques up to that point involved envisioning sleeping rabbits. Someone suggested to me that maybe that meant I needed rabbits in my life, and that sounded right to me.

Rabbits are very charming to be around; it's almost impossible not to feel happy when there are bunnies dashing around your house, or stretched out at your feet, or grooming/licking your pants. There's also something really touching about gaining the trust of rabbits, which are commonly prey animals.

Always interact with them, always touch and pet and hold them (which is important for monitoring their health as well as for bonding with them), and incorporate them into your household as much as you can. Rabbits aren't meant to languish alone in cages — we would never do that with dogs or cats, and we shouldn't do it to rabbits, either.

Kevin Dresser & Kate Johnson, BrooklynBunny

Rabbit: Roebling (eight years old)

Kate had a rabbit as a child and also had a rabbit living with her when she and Kevin met while living in Brooklyn, New York. Kevin's childhood best friend was his stuffed rabbit toy named "Bunny".

Rabbits are very misunderstood in our society. Most people believe that they are designed to live secluded in cages outside and that they are not very sociable. However, it is quite the opposite. Our rabbit Roebling lives inside and is never locked in a cage. He is free to roam every square foot of our place. He has a little station where he eats and drinks, a few little areas to take his naps and even visits the litter box like most sophisticated house pets. He does not like to be alone and likes to follow us from room to room.

First thing all rabbit owners need to do is visit the House Rabbit Society homepage at www.Rabbit.org and educate themselves on everything rabbit. Second, cut down on any sugary sweets. Occasional treats are okay, but stock up on great hays from Oxbow and American Pet Diner. Hay is the most important way to keep your rabbit healthy.

Our fact-of-the-day to those that do not know much about rabbits is that rabbits cannot vomit. When they are grooming themselves, they can build up a massive amount of fur in their belly. This is very dangerous and sometimes fatal in rabbits. So, be sure to keep them on a proper diet that helps breakdown occurrences like an upset tummy.

Leslie Stein, Majestic Creature

Rabbits: Mackenzie, Jack and Elvie

My first rabbit was Mackenzie, a grey Netherland dwarf my mother and I fell in love with at our local pet shop when I was eight or nine years old. I remember my friends were all very jealous because I had the cutest little friend in town. I taught her to walk on her hind legs for treats. We lived in a long narrow flat that she ran up and down all the time in these almost spastic bursts of energy. She lived for about seven years. On my seventeenth birthday, my mother surprised me with two more Netherland Dwarfs that she said looked bonded and didn't want to separate. They would mostly lay on top of one another behind the couch. Elvie bonded to my mother and Jack bonded to me. Elvie lived a long life and loved papaya tablets. Jack lived even longer, about eleven years, he was fond of almonds.

Rabbits are a pretty misunderstood pet and they often times suffer from the neglect of people who do not understand their special needs. Patience with them is important as they frighten easily (remember how big we are to them!). If you are a loving and patient person, I would encourage you to adopt a rabbit, they are sweet creatures that need a lot of love but also need you to respect their tiny stature.

Cover exposed extension cords in bath tissue rolls. Also we cut a hole at the bottom of our screen door so the buns could play in our fenced in yard and come in at night or when they were hungry... or scared by a big possum!

Susceptible, by Genevieve Castree. Drawn & Quarterly

“As I get older, I meet other children who have a missing father who lives in British Columbia. It’s like a mythical kingdom where dads go to disappear.” Genevieve Castree’s got a knack for knocking you flat on your ass every so often, channeling the sort of profundity that comes with the innocence of youth. It’s the story of a young woman grappling to define what shaped her -- a hard mystery to unravel, really, in a youth shaped by the influences of adult children too hung up on their own neuroses to help a young mind from developing its own.

There’s an intimacy, too, to Castree’s art -- flat with distinctively handwritten dialog, owing a lot, it seems to fellow Québécois cartoonist Julie Doucet and the zine culture from which she sprang. But for all the reality, the artist isn’t afraid to dive into the metaphorical, when it comes time to drive a point home, particularly in those moments that chronicle her initially hesitant, but her initially hesitant embrace of drug culture and punk rock -- less tools of rebellion than means of escape.

But there’s something of a happy ending in here in the knowledge that if we can’t erase the damage done, as least some of us will be lucky enough to outgrow it.

Bicycle, by Ugo Gattoni. No Brow Press

The decision between hanging it on the wall or filing on the bookshelf is generally put to rest rather quickly by the binding. No Brow Press hasn’t made things easy here with Bicycle, printed as a leporello foldout couched inside a book jacket. The foldout is “nearly two meters in length,” which, through the miracle of two-sided printing, puts at around four meters of highly detailed chaos, a bicycle race through vaguely distopian cartoon streets apparently inspired by the 2012 London Olympics.

There’s plenty here to keep you busy for a few days, until you finally come to a decision on how precisely to present the thing, filled with some rather blue shenanigans, Escher-esque physics and, I suspect, inside jokes that I will never be able to unravel. I’m also not entirely sure who won the race, but judging from the state of the cityscape, the contestants and spectators clearly have more important things to worry about.

Barrel of Monkeys, by Florent Rupert and Jerome Mulot. Rebus Books

There’s a Dash Shaw quote on the rear that perfectly sums up the feeling here. The cartoonist, hardly proficient in French, describes the experience of reading the book without and without comprehension of the dialogue. The images, while oft graphic, don’t really give one an idea precisely how twisted its contents are -- nor, more importantly, do they reveal just how funny the book’s sketchy drawings and phenakistoscope storytelling can be.

Nowhere is that juxtaposition better pronounced than in the narration of a trip to the zoo by the two cameramen leads. And while I’d long ago assumed I was finished feeling bad for laughing, having such sensibilities dulled by the likes of Johnny Ryan and Ivan Brunetti, Ruppert and Mulot have, for better or worse, reawakened some of those doubts. But hey, we were all bound to find out what terrible people we are sooner or latter right? At least we’ve got the occasion to laugh about it.

Ablatio Penis, by Will Dinski. 2D Cloud

I admit, I picked this one off the shelf at Forbidden Planet due to the intrigue of an unmarked, brightly-colored comic. A fan of past Dinski minis, I didn’t bother going so far as attempting to figure out what the thing is called -- something the cartoonist doesn’t exactly broadcast even inside the book. Sitting down to write this, having just finished the thing, I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not to reveal the name here -- no some much due to the raciness of severed genitals as the fact that there was an extra level of enjoyment in reading with such casual ignorance.

I apologize for spoiling some of the surprise. It’s a necessary evil. I want you to pick up this book, and having a name to awkwardly mutter to the proprietary of your local comic bookery should help in that pursuit. Ablatio Penis is a rare look at the American political system that never comes across an attempt at a teaching moment. There are truths to be found in here about the flaws of our electoral system -- underhanded acts and making the public personal, but the book never preaches against them with any particular, just delivers matter of factly the sort of fallout that has become as much a part of the system as the laws drawn up to define it.

See previous Comics Rack reviews

But as zines suffer at the hands on the online self-publishing explosion, there’s been a push in recent years to collect some of the best representations of the medium, to counteract their nebulous, dissolving nature with bound collections. While these don’t have the same thrill as newly printed single issues, it’s impossible to overstate the value of these volumes, which help to preserve a rich culture history that would otherwise vanish with the disappearance of their remaining copies.

Of course, not every zine is a masterpiece, but the great ones hold work on-par with the best professionally published books. And thankfully, publishers like Microcosm are doing their damnedest to preserve as many as possible. Below you’ll find some personal favorites. It’s hardly a complete list by any measure, but these are the ones I keep pulling off my own bookcase shelves to read and re-read.

Add Toner, by Aaron Cometbus. (Last Gasp)

I don’t know what to tell you beyond the fact that Aaron Cometbus is one of the best writers of the past 50 years. I believed this when I was a 13-year-old living in the East San Francisco Bay, and I believe it to this day. There’s a lot of catching up to do, if you’re not a frequenter of the zine sections of anarchist bookstores, much of which is out-of-print. This is probably the best possible place to start, a 368 page collection of the best zine that ever was. 2002’s Despite Everything is much more comprehensive, at nearly double the size, sure, but much of that collection is devoted to a writer attempting to figure out precisely what he wants his zine to do.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that the relatively recent issue 54 is easily one of the series’ best, a story of growing up, diverging paths and traveling Asia and playing Scrabble with his old childhood buddies, who are now one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

Scam: The First Four Issues, by Iggy Scam. (Microcosm)

Totally, totally essential for anyone with anything approaching a punk rock bone in their body. In more recent years, Iggy has contributed to This American Life and written a politically-minded tome featuring a back quote by none other than Howard Zinn. To those of us who know it, however, Scam will always be his legacy. This collection of the zine’s first four issues features plenty of types on how to live for free, chronicles of questionable police authority and honest-to-goodness music reviews, all alternating between type and handwritten text.

The sporadically published zine just celebrated the release of its ninth issues, an extended cut of the Black Flag oral history the author wrote up for the LA Weekly. For those with even a passing interest in the band and the hardcore scene, it gets the highest possible recommendation.

The Encyclopedia of Doris, by Cindy Crabb. (Doris Press)

Just about everything you could ever want from a zine collection: reproductions of hand-photocopied layouts, the typewritten lists, scribbled comics about bugs and stuff, feminist politics and memoir all rolled into one. Oh, and an alphabetical arrangement of the contents collected herein. I think what really enamored me to Cindy Crabb’s much-loved zine, however, is the author’s laying bare of her own struggles in politics and empathy.

“I have not always been a good transgender ally,” she writes. “I have been frightened by the implications of people born girl, deciding they are not that, and afraid that somehow that would undermine my struggle. It’s smart writing, obviously, and it’s clearly from the heart. Most importantly, it’s the words of a person with a lot to teach, still concious of the fact that she still has things left to learn.

Burn Burn Collector: Collected Stories from One through Nine, by Al Burian. (PM Press)

Al Burian’s name invariably comes up in every list of great zines. And there’s no question why, really -- he’s one of the most talented writers ever to sit down and bang out a zine. Unlike most authors in the medium, there’s no shortage of ways to get Burian’s work, but this collection is really the most logical, for that rare series that came into the world mostly full formed. And, unlike many of his contemporaries, who are hesitant to jump into the digital sphere, you can even buy the whole damned thing as an e-book. Those that kind of feels like cheating, no?

One More for the People, by Martha Grover. (Perfect Day Publishing)

Perhaps setbacks aren’t the sole source of inspiration. Maybe purpose can just as often arise from positive change, but it’s hard to argue the point that most great art is born of the unfortunate. None of this is to suggest, of course, that Martha Grover’s life is ultimately tragic, but this collection of eight year’s worth of Somnambulist is evidence of a writer finding literary purpose in adversity.

Her early family memoirs are terrific (“March 1, 2009: The [family] meeting is canceled because everyone has strep throat”), but One More for the People explodes with life a soon as “81 Symptoms” begins, chronicaling her diagnosis and eventual coming to grips with Cushing’s Disease, including, as advertised, a full catalog of the strange and potentially fatal disease’s laundry list of indicators.

One More for the People is strong and funny and ultimately hopeful, and Grover continues her honest-to-a-fault explorations in the final segment, “Personals,” closing the book with the wonderful list, “Fifteen Things I’m Not Putting on My OK Cupid Profile,” a section that opens with the pitch perfect, “This morning I put my iPod on shuffle, and strangely, the first two songs I heard were both about murdering women.” It probably says more about my own neuroses that I think that’s a perfect opener, right?

On Subbing, by Dave Roche. (Microcosm)

Along with fellow Temp Slave and Dishwasher, this one gives me great joy, as someone who’s lived his own personal Factotum in early post-education life. There’s no greater well of zine fodder than the dead end job, and Dave Roche’s a master catalogger of his struggles to engage a classroom full of children with special needs. Every bit as entertaining as it is heartwarming. I think I’ve accidentally purchased a couple of this over the years, and they were both worth it.

Ghost Pine, by Jeff Miller. (Invisible Publishing)

Old Erick “Iggy Scam” Lyle calls this one “Canada’s longest running and best punk zine.” I’m struggling to argue the point, but I’m not sure I can. On the former front, I can’t thing of anything I can claim to any of value I’ve performed consistently since the mid-90s. As for the latter, well, Jeff Miller spins an entertaining true life tale, especially when discussing his suburban punk rock youth.

This collection, clearly, is an attempt to highlight the literary merits of the long-running zine, collecting, non-chronologically, the best of the title into a prose volume that shares none of the aesthetic properties of the punk zines on which we were weaned, saved for the screen printed cover. But hey, entertaining writing is entertaining writing, bad photocopy or no.

Absolutely Zippo: Anthology of a Fanzine, by Robert Eggplant. (Benny & Son)

Now this is how a punk zine looks. And maybe it’s partially the fact that I purchased a used copy, but this feels like it’s going to fall apart in my hands every time I open the damned thing -- not like those loving compiled and beautiful bound collections we’ve seen from some of these folks. The glue holding together this volume undoubtedly has far less reinforcement than the staples that held the original issues together. And maybe there’s something to be said for that -- the etherial nature of fanzines. Not everything is meant to last forever, right?

But while some of the contents included herein no doubt hold some embarrassment for their creators in the decades that have since passed, there’s a lot to be said for the essential nature for all those harboring even a passing interest in 80s/90s punk rock. Between Eggplant’s own musings and contributions from the likes of Aaron Cometbus and Larry Livermore (whose “scene reports” seem to always include mention of just how hastily they were written), this is, perhaps, the definitive documentation of the Lookout / Gilman East Bay scene.

Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine, by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson. (Bazillion Points)

This collection happily skirts the line between the two, maintaining, for better and worse, the original layouts of the 22 issues it compiles, while creating a volume that’ll play nicely next to your fancy pants coffee table art books. Bazillion Points outdid its here. Every page is a hardcore show flier come to life, featuring interviews with and works by most of hardcore’s definitive icons, including Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris, Henry Rollins and, of course, the Meatmen’s Tesco Vee, who would go on to found the record label of the same name with co-author Dave Stimson and Necros bassist Corey Rusk.

This 575 page collection is important as more than just its insight into the label -- it’s a key document of one of the most powerful music movements of the past 35 years. And hell, who doesn’t want to look at full-size reproductions of early Black Flag concert fliers?

Schism: New York Hardcore Fanzine, edited by Chris Wrenn. (Bridge Nine Press)

Speaking of Hardcore, if you can find a reasonably-priced copy of the Schism hardcore fanzine collection by Bridge Nine Press, don’t hesitate. That book’s currently fetching more than $100 over on Amazon, which certainly feels like a lot to pay for a book that’s a fraction the price of the Touch and Go collection -- one that originally carried a $14 cover price at that. But the pictures and oft-lighthearted interviews with the likes of Agnostic Front and Gorilla Biscuits are pretty essential readings for anyone who live through the era -- and those who wished they had.

The Simple History Series, by J Gerlach. (Microcosm)

Like Howard Zinn broken up into bite-sized, Cliffs Notes volumes, this unbound collected series chronicles a diverse array of historical moments into easily digested. There’s ten books in all, and once you’ve finished the first issue on Columbus on your bus ride to work, there’s no getting out of this things they didn’t tell you in school history series. The day after getting this in the mail, I shot a letter to the publisher asking when volume two is set to arrive. The answer is eventually. But not soon enough.

Skate Fate: The Best of Skate Fate

Easily the best compilation I’ve seen of an 80s skate zine. And damned if it doesn’t make me happy, with its badly drawn comics and goofy interviews with folks like Lance Mountain. Nostalgia for the era has never been stronger, thanks almost single-handedly to the cinematic output of Bones Brigade founder Stacy Peralta. As great as his recent documentaries have been, however, there’s something to be said for the raw document that is this collection, with its hand-drawn ads, collections of abandoned logos and sometimes questionable grammar.

More than just about anything I’ve come across over the past couple of years, this thing makes me want to jump on my board. But, as I’m sure is the case with its creators more than 30 years after its inception, my knees just ain’t what they used to be.

Don't Go Where I Can't Follow by Anders Nilsen (with Cheryl Weaver). Drawn & Quarterly

I usually know more about these titles from bigger name cartoonists going into them. I can't say whether the element of surprise was a good thing for Anders Nilsen's latest. A swift change from the epic mini Big Questions, which was loving compiled into a massive volume by D&Q roughly a year and a half back. Don't Go Where I Can't Follow is a swift emotional kick the the chest, that will make you bawl your eyes out to the point of dehydration or immediately phone up a loved one who hasn't received the sort of attention they deserve. Or, more probably both.

There are photographs here and love notes and sketches and comics contained herein. It's a hard thing to read, a great deal of whose difficulty comes, ultimately, in knowing just how impossible it must have been to write.

Eat More Bikes by Nathan Bulmer. Koyama Press

This might be the perfect comic for the internet age -- one-liners built into six-panel strips, crafted with sketchy artwork. Like 140 character Twitter jokes understood to be scripts for full-page comics. Sure, 30 seconds more attention span required for consumption, but, you know, pictures. On occasion, Nathan Bulmer even has the audacity to ask us to sit through a full two page spread, but don't worry too much, he'll, more often than not, spend the final panel tearing it all down, as is perhaps demonstrated with one of the best single issue comics openings in recent memory, The Noseless Great Moral Cats, a false start intended to trick parents into buying this sick funny stuff, a page after a crown of thorn-wearing Jesus is busily bleeding on a baby lamb.

Ticket Stub by Tim Hensley. Yam Books

I'd by lying if I said I didn't have to do a bit of online research, to make sure this was the same Tim Hensely -- you know, the one who gave us the Archie-in-depted adventures of umpteen millionaire teenage playboy Wally Gropius. Same guy, it turns out (and not the Blue Chair Records Americana recording artists with slightly better SEO). Ticket Stub culls the nine issue run of Hensley's 90s mini of the same, drawn during the cartoonist's time as a close-captioned writer. The pages are filled with drawn stills from a diverse array of films, sketched as stories in their own right and retaining all the strangeness of a truly odd job indeed.

Sell Your Boobs by Lisa Hanawalt

If it weren't for people like Johnny Ryan, Ivan Brunetti and Ken Dahl, I might not know what a truly, truly terrible person I am. Lisa Hanawalt is in that rare company -- cartoonist who can make me laugh out loud uncomfortable on a crowded train. Sure she's all fancy now, hanging out at those fancy New York Times illustrator parties, but she still throws us horrible human beings some bones, like the mini Sell Your Boobs, a little yellow-paged sketchbook full of gags I'd genuinely feel bad about myself describing to you here.

There are no animals wearing typewriter hats, but plenty of the lists we've grown to love and some earnest, but contextually hilarious life drawing, as well as a few pages that wonderfully appear to have been drawn using a crayon with the wrong hand. And, of course, the obligatory page of horse drawings. Sell Your Boobs is a small and light thing, but it's a helpful assurance that all those fancy pants newspaper parties haven't robbed her of her ability to make the rest of us feel bad for guffawing around small children.

Kicksville Confidential #1 by Avi Spivak

Anyone with a bias toward the world of wonderful things will almost certainly feel compelled to pay a visit to the Norton Records website, credit card in hand, upon finishing Kicksville Confidential. And there, you’ll be greeted with a devastating little video about the vintage label, which was slammed full force by Hurricane Sandy, doing a number on its catalog stock. Norton’s a beacon of raw cultural salvation in a river of pop ephemera and this is precisely the book it deserves, a sequential catalog of its history and the legendary and often hilarious quirks of its roster of artists.

Billy Miller (who founded the company with one-time Cramps drummer Miriam Linna) kicks off the book with a tale of the label’s founding, writing, “Norton’s got a six-and-a-half foot cyclops drag queen, a pair of singing siamese twins joined at the top of the head, an indian with one lung, at least three murders, the nation’s number one art thief” -- and it just sort goes on from there, setting the stage for the truly insane tales of hillbilly chicken enthusiast Hasil Adkins, label mascot Esquerita and lunatic rock guru Kim Fowley, amongst dozens of other rock ‘n roll inmates.

Fanny & Romeo by Yves Pelletier and Pascal Girard. Conundrum Press

Even with a few Drawn & Quarterly books to his name, Pascal Girard isn’t a household name in American indie comics circles (those living in homes with spinner racks of their very own) -- quite the shame in light of last year’s Reunion, a delightful look at the rituals surrounding attempts to go home again. Fanny & Romeo, a translation of 2010’s Valentin, finds the French-Canadian cartoonist teaming up with comedian Yves Pelletier for heartfelt look at the intersection of adult relationships, animal ownership and allergies. The story’s not always pretty, but Girard’s Schulzian watercolored images usually are.

John Porcellino (who recently released a new issue of King Cat that you should probably buy) handed me a copy of this collection adding, proudly, that John G. Miller inked all of the blacks with a ballpoint pen. That’s a lot. Each panel in this book is about half black ink. Maybe that gives you some idea of what you’re in for here -- but probably not. Few things can, except to say, perhaps, that this is something akin to what you might get, were Fletcher Hanks obsessed with cyberpunk and rough black and white shapes. Oh and there are nazis and spaceships and the devil and characters named Slasher McSpace (the meanest hippy in town) and Baby Richard Dingball (the baby fugitive).

I read this on a plane and the lady next to me looked at me like I was crazy. She’s got a point, but I’m still going to run out and buy the other collections of Miller’s work. Assuming my head doesn’t explode first.

I can’t be the only one who thought of Katie Skelly’s Nurse Nurse (as seen in this very column a few months back) the first time I picked up this mini, right? Like that book, it’s something of a minimalist psychedelic space story (aren’t they all?), but that’s really where the comparisons stop. Philippa Rice’s brave other words aren’t so much the backdrop of strange adventure stories as they are the settings for run-of-the-mill texts between a man and a woman who ran into each other in the stairwell of an apartment building. That’s right -- relationship problems! In space!

No surprise that Building Stories, the latest masterwork from Chris Ware rated at the top of the top of the list. Tied for second place are Brandon Graham's Prophet and two Fantagraphics titles, Barack Hussein Obama and Heads or Tails, by Steven Weissman and Lilli Carre, respectively. Directly below, you'll find a list of those titles that scored multiple picks and further down, reviews from the panel members themselves, featuring more than enough comics to help you survive the holidays in mostly one piece.

Eight votes:

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

Four votes:

Prophet, by Brandon Graham, et al.

Barack Hussein Obama, by Steven Weissman

Heads or Tails, by Lilli Carre

Three votes:

Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel

The Nao of Brown, by Glyn Dillon

Zegas #2, by Michel Fiffe

My Friend Dahmer, by Derf

By This Shall You Know Him, by Jesse Jacobs

The Hypo, by Noah Van Sciver

Two votes:

No Straight Lines, edited by Justin Hall

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: a Graphic Memoir by Ellen Forney

Suspect Device #2, edited by Josh Bayer

Batman by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Cleveland by Harvey Pekar, Joseph Remnant

The Voyeurs by Gabrielle Bell

Goliath by Tom Gauld

Nick Abadzis, Cartoonist

Koma, by Pierre Wazem and Frederik Peeters

Sublime, fantastical tale of identity, loss and rebirth that for me recalls the atmosphere of Moebius and Jodorowksy's better stuff, or films like A Matter of Life and Death and most of Miyazaki's output. It is just in a world of its own in a thoroughly excellent way.

Kolor Klimax, edited by Matthias Wivel

Subtitled 'Nordic Comics Now', this collection of strips by various Scandinavian cartoonists feels startling and vital to me and features a wide variety of styles, each as absorbing as all the others contained within these pages. I don't think I've enjoyed an anthology as much as this one in years.

The Sky In Stereo, by Mardou

There's a sensibility of the universal experience in this book: I love the way Mardou draws people with all their flaws and everyday wit, with all the grit and gray of the landscapes of their lives pierced by occasional shafts of yellow sunlight. Her stories are animated by real, raw souls and their hopes, self-made traps and impractical dreams. My favorite mini-comic of the year.

Zegas #2, by Michel Fiffe

Fiffe is a phenomenal artist who uses color like a character in its own right. He uses it like no-one else in comics and he's just as adept with black-and-white -- this book sports both and he invents new grammar in each area. Stunning.

Hilda and the Bird Parade, by Luke Pearson

As phenomenons go, Luke Pearson's shaping up pretty well. There's kind of a theme here as I'll liken him to Miyazaki too with a good bit Of Tove Jansson and some British whimsy thrown in but I've been banging on about Pearson's work for at least a couple of years now so if you haven't discovered him yet check out this beautiful book, produced to NoBrow's impeccable usual standards.

Jimmy Aquino, Podcaster

The Nao of Brown, by Glyn Dillon

Nao Brown returns home to figure out her life all while still dealing with an extreme form of OCD (that I now think I possibly could have). Stunning art (mixing several styles) that conveys the journey of a troubled young woman trying to find balance.

Sailor Twain or The Mermaid in the Hudson, by Mark Siegel

A beautifully charcoal-drawn love story about a steamboat Captain and a mermaid, the lives they affect, curses and myths while paddling along the Hudson River during the late 1800s.

The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, by Julia Wertz

Wertz has shown us her drunken side, but has never talked about her battle with Systemic Lupus like she does here in both a heart-wrenching and heart-warming way. While one of her more serious works, it's still told with that great sense of humor we've all come to love. She just gets better and better!

Batman: Death by Design, by Chip Kidd and Dave Taylor

While Kidd weaves a suspenseful tale of Bruce Wayne helping to usher in an architectural Golden Age in Gotham, it's Taylor's pencils that are the star here. As it's told in a very "Elseworlds" style with no specific era mentioned, Taylor blends it all into one beautiful piece.

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me: A Graphic Memoir, by Ellen Forney

Forney is brutal in her honesty as she covers her diagnosis with bipolar disorder, the subsequent struggle to balance medication with creativity, and eventually rediscovering her groove. It's frenzied, funny and touching. She had me wanting to reach out and hug her at some places, and in other spots wanting to have drinks with her and laugh it up all night!

Ryan Alexander-Tanner, Cartoonist

The Making Of, by Brecht Evans

Using deftly layered transparent color washes, Evans masterfully crafts the engaging story of an artistic collaboration gone awry.

King City, Prophet, Multiple Warheads, by Brandon Graham

If this year belonged to anyone in comics, it was Brandon Graham. King City is a definitive, modestly-priced collection of a sprawling, ambitious work. Prophet is a standard-setting European-flavored sci-fi epic that features an outstanding collection of visual collaborators. Multiple Warheads is a new ongoing series that showcases Graham's snappy dialogue and brilliant world building, all in full color!

Daredevil, by Mark Waid, et al.

The cure for the common superhero comic, Daredevil is pure fun that features the best roster of artists in the genre.

Zegas #2, by Michel Fiffe

Zegas exists in a genre all its own, with each page featuring impressive, unique line work and innovative layouts. A true visual triumph that makes a very character-based story feel grandiose.

White Clay, by Thomas Herpich

Sometimes more like visual poems than traditional comics narratives, Herpich's latest collection of short stories is a challenging exploration into complex, idiosyncratic mythologies.

Box Brown, Cartoonist / Publisher

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

How do you not include this work in a best of list of 2012? Read it in any order you want? It's like unpacking The Game of Life. You're not allowed to open it until you get home.

Barack Hussein Obama, by Steven Weissman

Steven Weissman does stuff with actual analog comic materials that most dudes can't even do with photoshop. The story of our fictional president is pretty footloose. Who's to say the real Obama didn't turn into a bird at some point?

Thickness #3, edited by Michael Deforge and Ryan Sands

Comic about a dude making love to a video game. Comic about two women making love. Pin-up of two men making love. Splash page of fist making love to dude's butt. Need I say more? Long live Riso-printing.

Suspect Device #2, edited by Josh Bayer

"Appropriation itself is a suspect device." Josh Bayer encourages artists to sample comic art the way a hip-hop artist samples music and uses it to create something new. Full disclosure I did a comic in this anthology but don't hold that against it.

Pope Hats #3, by Ethan Rilly

After reading Pope Hats #3 I remember thinking that Ethan Rilly might actually be moonlighting as a high powered lawyer, for real. Further, Ethan Rilly's line is something to be reckoned with.

Jeffrey Brown, Cartoonist

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

Ware's latest is really a box of books from which one could fill a top ten list of comics for the year. Conceptually complex, emotionally resonant, funny, sad, thoughtful, brilliant.

The Voyeurs, by Gabrielle Bell

At face value Gabrielle Bell's autobiographical comics appear to be typical diary comics, but reading them reveals a richly textured inner life punctuated by moments of humor.

The Hive, by Charles Burns

As always, Burns is great at using surreal stories to express angst and psychological disturbances, and in full-color, his artwork is better than ever.

Barack Hussein Obama, by Steven Weissman

Strange, funny and beautiful. Weissman reinvents his comics with the kind of book I wish I would make.

The Furry Trap, by Josh Simmons

Funny, even as it makes your hair stand on end and your skin start to crawl... Horror comics that gash their way below the surface.

Will Dinski, Cartoonist

Heads or Tails, by Lilli Carre

Beautiful artwork. Thoughtfully paced. "Of The Essence" is one of the best comic book short stories I've ever read.

The Guardian Review strips, by Tom Gauld

In my book, Tom Gauld can do no wrong. Fun and smart.

The Hypo, by Noah Van Sciver

Van Sciver is pretty prolific, but this is his best work to date. The line art just drips with anguish.

The Realist, by Asaf Hanuka

I'm addicted to Hanuka's autobiographical comics. They're so very honest and direct.

Barack Hussein Obama, by Steven Weissman Barack Hussein Obama is pretty much my favorite book of the year. I'd read much of it originally online, but I get a better appreciation for Weissman's craft in the printed collection where it can feel like you're actually looking at the finished artwork.

Joe Keatinge, Comics Writer

Saga of a Doomed Universe, by Scott Reed

What If Alan Moore Wrote Secret Wars? That's a bit of a misnomer (and a little bit of a lazy description), but fully explaining Scott Reed's Saga of a Doomed Universe requires one to sit down and read it themselves. The bronze age masterpiece that never was. Highest possible recommendation.

Zaya: Tome 1, by Wei Huang Jia & Jean-David Morvan

The best European album I've seen in years, bringing a strange tale of ...well, I can't exactly say what. International gangsters. Impossible machines. All wrapped in the most breathtaking new artistic voice since Little Thunder.

Casanova: Avaritia, by Gabriel Ba and Matt Fraction

My favorite ongoing series of mini-series finally returned at the tail end of 2011 and came to an astonishing conclusion in 2012. There was a lot of pressure for this super-spy-fi series to deliver and it definitely did, above and beyond.

Prophet, by Brandon Graham, Simon Roy, Giannis Milogiannis & Farel Dalrymple

Despite my bias considering how this ties in with my own book, Glory, Prophet is easily the best sci-fi comic produced in years, going back to a tradition of sci-fi not seen since the grander days of Metal Hurlant. Each issue is absolutely beautiful in their own way.

Study Group, curated by Zack Soto

Hands down the best anthology being produced today, featuring stories by Soto himself, the aforementioned Farel Dalyrmple, Francois Vigneault, Sam Alden, Patrick Keck, Ian MacEwan, Jason Leivian, Jonny Negron, Kazmir Strzepek, Malachi Ward, Michael DeForge and so many others. Every single day brings another amazing comic of a completely different style of a completely different genre, united by a level of quality I haven't seen from an anthology in a long, long time.

Shaenon K. Garrity, Cartoonist

Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel, bechdel followed her blockbuster memoir Fun Home, about her father, with this unpacking of her relationship with her mother, a relationship as fraught as any mother-daughter relationship. Whereas the narrative of Fun Home was structured around classic literature, Are You My Mother? builds on a schema of psychological texts, as the eternally left-brained Bechdel tries to find an intellectual framework to explain her childhood. Meanwhile, her mother comments skeptically on the whole project. Are You My Mother? is quieter than Fun Home, but also denser and ultimately more ambitious.

Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, by Mary M. Talbot and Bryan Talbot

Literary scholar Mary Talbot, herself the daughter of a famed Joycean scholar (among people who are really into Joyce, anyway), intertwines her own fraught childhood with that of James Joyce's gifted, unstable, doomed daughter Lucia. Bryan Talbot strips back his usual ornate art style to illustrate his wife's story in simple, organic lines; it's some of his very best artwork. I'm a big fan of Bryan Talbot and an even bigger James Joyce nerd, so this book was made for me.

Popeye, by Roger Langridge, Ken Wheaton, Tom Neely, et al.

I don't often read pamphlet-style comic books, but when I do, I read IDW's Popeye. Written by the great Roger Langridge and drawn by Ken Wheaton and other artists (including Langridge himself in the latest issue) who understand the scratchy brilliance of the original strip, it succeeds in capturing the offbeat rhythms of E.C. Segar's work while being fresh, original, and funny.

The Heart of Thomas, by Moto Hagio

Both the best manga and the best reprint project of the year (and this is a year of some damn good reprint projects), this gorgeous hardcover from Fantagraphics, overseen by preeminent shojo manga scholar Matt Thorn, is a book I've been awaiting for over ten years, and it exceeds my expectations. Hagio's 1970s graphic novel about a German boys' school shaken by the mysterious death of a student is often cited as one of the progenitors of the "boys' love" genre, but it's a magnificent, moving story in its own right.

Cul de Sac, by Richard Thompson

This year, Cul de Sac, the best newspaper comic strip of the last decade at least, came to an end, as creator Richard Thompson's ongoing battle with Parkinson's made it too difficult for him to keep up with the daily pace of strip cartooning. Along the way, Cul de Sac produced several brilliant book collections, won Thompson an Ignatz and the Reuben of the Year, and inspired Bill Watterson to paint a poignant portrait of protagonist Petey. So it's been a good run.

Karen Green, Librarian

My Friend Dahmer, by Derf

Derf, Jeffrey Dahmer's high-school classmate, offers a complex and nuanced narrative of the serial killer's early years. A masterful example of a story only comics could tell without falling into verbosity or luridness.

Abelard, by Regis Hautiere and Renaud Dillies

A poignant, droll, and heartbreaking "funny animals" tale for grown-ups, with breathtaking art.

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

A no-brainer for this list! Ware continues to push the boundaries of the medium and challenge the reader.

The Graphic Canon, edited by Russ Kick

Comics adaptations of literature had already been elevated to respectability, with Peter Kuper, Gareth Hinds, Rob Berry, and more, but The graphic canon turns the process up to 11 (and includes Peter Kuper, Gareth Hinds, Rob Berry, and so many, many more).

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: a Graphic Memoir, by Ellen Forney

More than the usual memoir, a searingly honest account of learning of and dealing with Forney's bipolar disorder, with the bonus of the Seattle art scene and the legend of the crazy artist.

Brian Heater, Journalist

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

As much a graphic novel as it is a deadly weapon, Ware's collection of interwoven stories continues to make strange and mesmerizing use of the physical comic space in a digital word, while allowing each to live separately from one another and ultimately not cumbersome. The artist also eschews the comment complaints of speedy readers by offering up full, heartbreaking pages that demand lengthy study.

The Voyeurs, by Gabrielle Bell

I can't remember the last time I read a story by Bell with which I wasn't completely enamored. This collection of some of her recent best continues that trend, gingerly walking the line between autobiography and magic realism.

Heads or Tails, by Lilli Carre

Ditto most of those sentiments here. I'm actually happy that I missed most of these short stories when first printed in their respective anthologies, so I could experience them all for a first time here. Carre showcases an aesthestic diversity I'd not seen from here in a collection of tightly crafted tales.

The Hypo, by Noah Van Sciver

Van Sciver's Blammo is one of those few comics capable of making me laugh out loud on a crowded train. The Hypo puts the cartoonist's brimming angst to a different use entirely, in a book that does precisely what a good piece of historical non-fiction should: finding a fascinating way to tell a story we were convinced we already knew.

Goliath, by Tom Gauld

I can't think of a cartoonist who can make me laugh in fewer lines.

Tom Kaczynski, Cartoonist, Publisher

Nancy is Happy, by Ernie Bushmiller

This was one of the first books I read this year and still easily one of the most enjoyable. The minimalism of the art, the quirky humor, the amazing consistency, it all started with these strips.

By This Shall You Know Him, by Jesse Jacobs

The Book of Genesis re-imagined as an art project. Complete with competing Cosmic Entities (each with its own aesthetic preferences) and The Advisor.

Are You My Mother, by Alison Bechdel

One of the few comics of the year that was challenging, intelligent, literate, and ultimately very rewarding. We need more comics like this.

Cartoon Utopia, by Ron Rege

The first esoteric text of the new century. The harbinger of the New Aeon. This book will be a staple of Esoteric Lore for millennia to come.

Showcase Presents: Young Love Vol. 1, by Various

The stand out here (and the reason I got this book) is The Private Diary of Mary Robin, R.N. which is brilliantly written by 'Unknown' and exquisitely drawn by John Romita. It's an ultra-concentrated dose of pulpy, comic-book Romance. Not for the faint of heart.

Bill Kartalopoulos, Educator / Critic

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

Ware's stunning Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth inaugurated the age of the graphic novel twelve years ago. Since then, corporate publishing has done everything in its power to make the graphic novel generic, bland and tasteless. Just in time, Ware returns with an immensely moving major work that deconstructs not just the form of the graphic novel, but the very concept of a book.

The Blonde Woman, by Aidan Koch

Comics are enjoying a peak of stylistic diversity, as artists engage a full range of drawing media, printmaking solutions, and the possibilities of full color reproduction and digital imaging. Aidan Koch's pencil and gouache comics are some of the most beautiful comics being produced anywhere, and this sustained, full color, poetic graphic novella may be her strongest statement to date.

Heads or Tails, by Lilli Carre

This assured and wholly satisfying full-color collection of short stories by Lilli Carre is among the loveliest books of contemporary comics published this year. The book's short stories demonstrate Carre's ability to experiment confidently with diverse drawing media while maintaining a consistent and distinct authorial point of view. Carre's fable-like tales offer thumbnail sketches of people who learn how to carry on after losing their heads.

Arsene Schrauwen #1, by Olivier Schrauwen

Belgian cartoonist Schrauwen's short story collection "The Man Who Grew His Beard" was one of last year's best books. In the first issue of this self-published follow-up series, his art becomes sparer and surer as he commences a fictionalized tale of his grandfather's adventures in colonialism and Modern architecture. Line, color and form maintain a fluid relationship as Schrauwen experiments with the possibilities of two-color risograph printing, continuing his own investigation into the physiognomy of style.

altcomics.tumblr.com, edited by Blaise Larmee

A source of constant inspiration, Larmee's Tumblr offers a wide-ranging firehose of visual ideas about comics. Unbound by the stylistic conventions or the culture of comics, altcomics tracks the most cutting edge contemporary work and looks further into comics' possible future than anything else on the planet.

Robert Kirby, Cartoonist

The Magic Hedge #2, by Marian Runk

A beautifully cohesive chapbook-style collection of stories about dreams and memories, loss and heartbreak. And birdwatching. Marian Runk just keeps getting better and better.

Pansy Boy #1 & #2, by Jose-Luis Olivares

Simply told, these short mini-comics have an arresting immediacy and poignancy, rendered in Olivares's unique expressionistic style. Can't wait to see where he takes this series next.

Gorilla World #1, by Cara Bean

Cara Bean, the Dian Fossey of cartoonists.

Them's the Breaks, Kid, by Cassie J. Snieder, Mari Naomi, Ric Carasqillo, Tessa Brunton

Four creators, four alternately hilarious, tragic, weird, or heartbreaking stories of misfortune, bad luck, and totally major bummers.

No Straight Lines: Four Decades of Queer Comics, edited by Justin Hall

Long overdue, this beautifully-produced, sharply edited retrospective may usher in a new era of respect and recognition for a long-neglected realm of the alt-comics world. Or perhaps not. Either way, very glad this book exists.

Jeff Lemire, Cartoonist

The Nao of Brown, by Glyn Dillon

Far and away my favourite book if the year. I can barely articulate how much I loved this book. It's the kind of comic that makes me totally rethink the way I approach my own work and makes me want to to be better. A beautiful comic in every sense if the word.

Batman, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

And on the total opposite end of the spectrum is Scott Snyder's Batman. Big bombastic superhero comics don't get any better than this. It will sound like I'm just heaping praise on one if my best friends here, but this book deserves it. It lives up to the hype and totally delivers.

Mind MGMT, by Matt Kindt

This is how to make a monthly comic indispensable. Matt packs even issue with so many layers. It's a dense, mysterious and riveting mythology told by a master cartoonist. Brilliant.

he Manhattan Projects, by Johnathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra

Mad science gone very wrong. Over-the-top pulp fun with Hickman's signature blend of smarts, huge concepts and great storytelling

Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera

Scalped came to an end this year and solidified itself as in of the best comics ever published.

Jordan Morris, Comedian

Saga, by Brian K. Vaughn, et al.

Every rave you've heard about this sci-fi/fantasy/action book is true. If these things were done correctly, Brian K. Vaughn would be writing every Star Wars movie from here on out, based on the strength of Saga.

Batman, by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo

Batman stories can tend to get a so grim that they become joyless, but Snyder cuts the darkness with a little humor and heart. A new villain outside Batman's usual rogues gallery makes it extra compelling.

Pantalones TX, by Yehudi Mercado

An all ages comic that's "all ages" in the same way Adventure Time is. Hilarious and weird with a great lesson. Read it with the coolest kid you know.

The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, by Chris Hastings

Like soft serve ice cream from a Dinosaur fountain. Chris Hastings is a gosh darn genius and this web comic just keeps getting more goofily awesome. Try the "Cumberland Ninja in King Radical's Court" story.

Let's Play God, by Zane and Brea Grant

A horror story set in the world of Portland indie rock. Funny, cool and REALLY creepy. It's like an old EC comics story, but with more Riot Grrls.

Mari Naomi, Cartoonist

Diary Comics #4, by Dustin Harbin

With this zine, I was blown away by Dustin Harbin's honesty and the depth of his self-reflection. I don't know if it appealed to me as an autobio cartoonist, as a general human, or both, but it very much scratched an itch.

Three #3, edited by Rob Kirby

This is a great series. Carrie McNinch shows off her storytelling chops in this issue.

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever, by Igloo Tornado

I liked this even better than the first book, and I freakin' LOVED the first book. Oh Glenn, what kind of trouble will you get into next?

Eat More Bikes, by Nathan Bulmer

When I came across Nathan Bulmer's webcomic, I was glued to his website for about two days. Two unproductive, side-splitting days.

No Straight Lines, edited by Justin Hall

This book is simply gorgeous, and Justin Hall did an amazing job at representing the history of LGBTQ comics. I hope there will be more like this in the future.

Chris Pitzer, Publisher Ad House Books

The Nao of Brown, by Glyn Dillon

I love the art and presentation of this work. Added bonus was that Glyn was at SPX this year. But the real enjoyment comes from the multi-media aspect of world building.

A Zine, by Jim Rugg and Jasen Lex

You could love this for the content. You could love this for the paper. You could love this for the patinaed bag with tape residue. Or you could just love it.

In Our Garden, by Claus Daniel Herrmann

Found via a random tweet. A nice little comic that utilizes the web as any good web comic might. Touching and beautifully designed.

Barack Hussein Obama, by Steven Weissman

I mean come on... it's an ELECTION YEAR. Not that it has anything to do with this. I just love what this book is. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't even recognize this as Weismann. And I like that.

To Get Her, by Bernie Mireault

New Bernie Mireault. Nuff said.

Jeff Newelt, Editor

Billy Dogma: The Last Romantic Antihero, by Dean Haspiel

The best installment yet of Dean Haspiel's sassy sexy rootintootin' Billy Dogma webcomic series. Kirby oomph, Miller sass, Eisner panache!

Zegas #2, by Michel Fiffe, exquisitely psychedelic one-man anthology reminiscent of early Love & Rockets, Steve Ditko and Brendan McCarthy surealiciousness.

My Friend Dahmer, by Derf Backderf

You'll read this in one sitting. Derf was a highschool classmate of serial killer Dahmer's. Chilling. Literally.

Raw Power, by Josh Bayer

It's a superhero love/hate letter slap upside yer head. Beware the Cat Man -- you wouldn't wanna do his wash!

Cleveland, by Harvey Pekar and Joseph Remnant

(Disclosure: I edited this book) Harvey Pekar (RIP) mined the mundane for magic since the 70's in his American Splendor comics. This final graphic novel combines his usual poignant autobiography with a history of Cleveland through his lovably curmudgeonesque lens. Joseph Remnant's art is at once subtle and sumptuous.

Nate Powell, Cartoonist

Interiorae, by Gabriella Giandelli

I've been on a crusade to spread the word about this incredible (and deeply underrated)

story for years. Interiorae is my second favorite graphic of the last decade, and just what I look for in a narrative: patient, dreamy, full of seemingly endless layers of shadow, slowly revealing the sweetness inside the rotten, all within the confines of a single high-rise apartment building, surrounded by snow and static. So happy it's finally seen the light of day as a single tome!

By This Shall You Know Him, by Jesse Jacobs

A great cosmic creation myth using Abrahamic and Vedic traditions as a springboard -- Jesse has allowed plenty of room to move and play within the creation framework.

Though it's mostly populated by balls of slime, ancient spaghetti-tentacled beasts, and, emotionally bruised cosmic titans, it remains believable and resonant, working through fundamental human tendencies and flaws. A perfect application of color to boot.

Prophet: Remission, by Brandon Graham, Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple and Giannis Milonogiannis

I had heard amazing things about Brandon's Prophet run so far, but didn't get a

chance to dive in until a few weeks ago. Holy shit -- the script is a so successful at subtly describing complex relationships amongst various races of creature with a minimum of voiceover text, all as it unfolds, just beyond John Prophet's realm of immediate knowledge. Each artist is perfectly paired with Brandon's narrative, and the swapping of art chores further compliments the multiple-Prophet space-time setup. I was surprised at just how good this title proved to be--descriptive, immersive, demanding.

Nurse Nurse, by Katie Skelly

Nurse Nurse stands as a perfect example of why serialized mini-comics deserve to be collected and bound. It's a fast-paced, deeply human, sexy sci-fi adventure, a truly entertaining one with room for just enough psychedelia and spirituality within Katie's relatively simple and iconic linework. She employs graphic white spaces and lovely curves, carefully paying attention to the kinetic energy behind her figures. I felt, especially drawn to and protective of the main character, not despite her shortcomings, but specifically because of them. It's campy while remaining genuinely invested in its own world-building -- truly B movie gold.

The Underwater Welder, by Jeff Lemire

Definitely Jeff's best work to date, and I must admit that, as a new dad, I was a sucker for this story from the get-go. This book showcases his visuals at their best, without the hasty shorthand occasionally evident in Sweet Tooth or Essex County. Underwater Welder has a captivating Bradbury-scripted Twilight Zone framework, sentimental without being sappy, raw without being overhanded. Made me immediately energized towrite and draw from the gut, unhindered.

Sean Pryor, Cartoonist

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, by Kevin Eastman, et al.

I grew up on the Turtles, so to see them back in comic form with a solid & refreshing story rules. I also am pleased that Kevin Eastman is involved with planning the layouts/character designs of this new series.

Cleveland, by Harvey Peter, Joseph Remnant

I know that my opinion on this may be a bit biased, but this is a damn good bookend to Harvey's chronicling of his hometown and his experiences in it. Joseph's art is truly incredible and captures Harvey in such a way that it reminds me of hanging out with him every time I flip to a page.

Saint Cole, by Noah Van Sciver

I think Noah is the purest form of the angsty underground cartoonist avatar that exists in contemporary 'comix' (don't get me wrong, he is a very nice and funny guy when you talk to him), and no story says it better so far than Saint Cole. I am particularly a fan of his Time Tunnel-esque panel layouts when the main character delves deeper into the misery that he calls his life.

History of Hip-Hop, by Ed Piskor

Ed's encyclopedic knowledge of Hip-Hop and it's culture along with his panel layout and old school comic look make this not only enjoyable to read but very satisfying to the eyes. Very excited to see it go to print.

Notebook Sketches, by Jim Rugg

I've seen several artists do amazing things with ballpoint pens, but nothing beats what Jim has compiled in this series of drawings. It makes me wish I had saved all my notebook drawings from high school so I could revisit them now, even though I'd still be jealous of Rugg's ability while looking at my old doodles.

Jess Smart Smiley, Cartoonist

Hilda and the Midnight Giant, by Luke Pearson

This book is the first in a new album-style series from Nobrow, and elaborates on the creatures and world I fell in love with in 2010's Hildafolk. Hilda is an engaging story filled with fantasy and dark humor, and makes beautiful use of the comics medium. (Bonus: the next book in the Hilda series, Hilda and the Bird Parade, is available now!)

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, by Joseph Lambert

Joseph Lambert has put out some amazing work over the years, and I bought this book at first glance, without knowing anything about it. While we know about the indefatigable blind and deaf Helen Keller, there is little information on Annie Sullivan, Helen's partly blind teacher. This is both a fascinating and informative biography, as well as one of the most visually rewarding reads I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

Mastering Comics: Drawing Words and Writing Pictures Continued, by Jessica Abel & Matt Madden

The follow-up to 2008's Drawing Words and Writing Pictures comics textbook from comics experts Abel and Madden is a detailed look at (and exercise in) the comics medium. A great study for writers, artists and comics-makers of all kinds.

Prophet, by Brandon Graham and Simon Roy,

Okay, I haven't actually read any of the Prophet series, but I've had more people recommend this series to me in the last month than I can count (and I can count pretty high!). I'm buying this today.

Around the World, by Matt Phelan

Great book, featuring three different stories of world-travelers in the late 1800s. (Bonus: if you like a little history in your comics, you might also like Matt Phelan's The Storm in the Barn!)

Jeremy Tinder, Cartoonist / Educator

Goliath, by Tom Gauld

A concise, beautiful, re-imagining of a Bible story I'm only vaguely familiar with. Gauld knows exactly how much information to dish out, both in his words and pictures. My favorite book of the year.

By This You Shall Know Him, by Jesse Jacobs

I went in expecting a psychedelic vision quest, and I came out having experienced a stunning new creation myth. Intricate, upsetting, and fun.

My Friend Dahmer, by Derf

Derf's comics are so well told and so smoothly paced that I am insanely jealous of him. My Friend Dahmer made me think of all the weirdos I knew in high school, and made me thankful none of them have killed anyone. That I know of.

Heads or Tails,, by Lilli Carre

Holy moly, what a pretty book. A nice encapsulation of many of the ways Lilli has been pushing herself both narratively and stylistically over the last few years. If only there was a way to squeeze her animation in there too.

Building Stories, by Chris Ware. While I feel like a bit of a dope re-buying stories I own in other formats, this box is really the ultimate version of this story. Is there anyway to read this in the right order? I don't think so. And that's what makes it so great. Every reader will experience this story in a slightly different way.

Douglas Wolk, Critic

2000 AD, by Various

I got more joy this year out of this weekly British institution than anything else in comics, in part because it's at least as interested in trying things that might fail (and sometimes do) as it is in relying on its strengths. The Judge Dredd sequences "The Cold Deck" and "Day of Chaos" both pulled off genuinely surprising feats of long-form serial narrative derring-do; D'Israeli and I.N.J. Culbard's artwork on "Low Life" and "Brass Sun," respectively, was extraordinary. And then there was Brendan McCarthy and Al Ewing's off-the-map "The Zaucer of Zilk..."

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

Ware is so far ahead of the game, especially as a formalist, that everyone's going to be eating this project's dust at least until he's done with Rusty Brown.

Snarked!, by Roger Langridge

This 12-issue miniseries was a marvelous piece of craftsmanship -- witty, exquisitely drawn, thrilling in different ways to different audiences. And the only other person I know who read it was my 7-year-old.

Are You My Mother?, by Alison Bechdel

A companion to Fun Home that couldn't have been much more different in some ways, this was Bechdel diving into deep, muddy waters, and emerging with a sense of how deep and how muddy they were. Her fascination with her own psychological processes is infectious, which I mean as a not-at-all-backhanded compliment.

Journey Into Mystery, by Kieron Gillen

A consistently enjoyable shared-superhero-universe comic--a sort of riposte to Neil Gaiman's Sandman, about a trickster archetype trying to redeem himself (or so he claims)--that became a great one with writer Gillen's final issue, in which he knocked down what turned out to be a gigantic chain of dominoes he'd been setting up since the beginning.

JT Yost, Cartoonist / Publisher

Building Stories, by Chris Ware

Do I even need to go into this? Ware is consistently awe-inspiring and seemingly never takes a shortcut. If I put out even one book that was of his caliber, I'd probably pat myself on the back and retire immediately.

RL, by Tom Hart

I sincerely hope that drawing a comic about the loss of his daughter proves cathartic. Perhaps the first chapter (released as a mini) hit me especially hard because I have a daughter almost exactly the same age as Rosalie, but I would imagine it will have a devastating impact on anyone who reads it.

Suspect Device #2, edited by Josh Bayer

Some people are wary of both anthologies and "gimmicks", both of which apply to Suspect Device. I happen to love anthologies, and I think the premise is brilliant. Contributors were asked to use a panel from two popular newspaper comic strips (Garfield and "Nancy for this issue) to construct their own comic. The results are varied but very entertaining across the board.

Digestate: A Food & Eating Themed Anthology, edited by JT Yost

How gauche to include an anthology that I edited & published, right? Oh well, deal with it. This anthology includes a ton of great cartoonists (Jeffrey Brown, James Kochalka, Renee French, Alex Robinson, Marc Bell, Noah Van Sciver, etc.) and a wide variety of approaches to the theme. At 288 pages, it will keep those suffering from pica busy for many months to come.

The Hypo, by Noah Van Sciver

I've loved Noah's work since picking up one of his very early minis (The Work of a Young, Unfed and Unknown Cartoonist), but I've been waiting in anticipation for him to break out of his repetitive theme of self-deprecation (although I do find it amusing). The Hypo plays to his strengths as an artist and as a story teller while not abandoning the darkness and depression that suffuses everything he draws.

Stocking stuffers? We thought about it, but in spite of what laundromat radio stations might lead you to believe, it IS too early to start thinking about the holidays. And besides, Chris Ware, for one, has clearly gone out of way to only produce work that could never in a million years be stuffed into anything resembling a stocking. So we guess you'll just have to keep these ones all to yourself. Don't say you've never done anything nice for you.

Building Stories by Chris Ware. Pantheon

Part way through the “14 distinctively discrete books, booklets, magazines, newspapers and pamphlets,” you wonder why you started reading, because you already knew that Chris Ware cuts like a knife deep into the heart of modern human isolation. And every few pages or so, like clockwork, something makes contact and utterly destroys you all over again. All that coupled with the knowledge that, try as you might, you’ll never be capable of producing something of this magnitude -- Ware is just one of those sorts of outliers who makes everyone else toiling away in a given medium feel that much worse about their own limited set of tools.

But as ever, it’s a beautiful journey, painstaking detailed and mind-numbingly crafted, without a single errant line, because we all know that a perfectionist like Ware would never be able to live with such an abhorrent thing. Thankfully, the cartoonist is fully capable of creating near perfect things, works of art that some how feel underpriced at $50 a pop.

Heads Or Tails by Lilli Carré. Fantagraphics Books

Until now, I probably would have sent you toward a copy of the Lagoon or Woodsman Pete, had you asked me where to start with Lilli Carré. Of course, both of those are still perfectly acceptable starting points (and really, start anywhere for that matter), but this collection of five years worth of Carré’s work certainly offers up the most diverse single serving of the whimsical cartoonist’s catalog thus far, both from an aesthetic and storytelling standpoint. These strips, which originally in the pages of places like The Believer and Mome, find the artist dipping her toes into new pools, the sort of freedom afforded by the low commitments of the short story form, often to truly wonderful effect.

Start with the paralleled remembrances of Rainbow Moment, and then work back and then forward, so you can read it again. You probably didn’t miss anything the first time around, but you should probably make sure, just in case.

Popeye by Roger Langridge and Tom Neely. IDW

I’ve entertained fantasies about a Tom Neely-drawn Popeye since the day I first saw the pages of The Blot unfold like some heavy metal EC Segar fever dream. And certainly one couldn’t ask for a better partner in crime than Roger Langridge, the Fred the Clown creating cartoonist who’s done time on a slew of properties, ranging from the Muppets to Thor. Issue #3 presents a particular highlight, as Thimble Theater’s famous sailor sets out to train Wimpy for an upcoming boxing match. Pelicans are eaten, Blutos are knocked unconscious and training montages worthy of Joe 'Bean' Esposito's silky vocals ensue. The sweet science indeed. It’s kid-friendly enough to help turn the next generation on to the greatest forearms in comics, but fans of Neely’s more horror-minded work will find some familiar costume choices in Wimpy’s undertaker-hooded opponent. Everybody wins! (Except for those foolish enough to do battle with Popeye, of course.)

Diary Comics #4 by Dustin Harbin. Koyama Press

I started to think that maybe the best diary strips are those done by non-professional cartoonists -- and there’s probably something to be said for that. Let’s face it, there’s lots of overlap, 1,000 different cartoonists all writing about the same weekend at the same independent comics expo -- sort of an emo Rashomon told through infinite crosshatching. Perhaps its the fact that my own circumstances have forced me to step away from the belly of the comics convention beast, but the latest collection of Dustin Harbin’s strip has offered up a subtle reminder of something I’d perhaps forgotten -- that subject matter is, at best, incidental, when a diary strip is done.

The best examples aren’t afraid of the mundane -- and certainly Harbin isn’t. Though, if his strip finds him floating through space with Albert Einstein every so often, you can’t really blame the guy.

New York Drawings by Adrian Tomine. Drawn & Quarterly

There have been all of, what, three issues of Optic Nerve published in the past decade? Adrian Tomine, you’re given those of us in the indie comics trenches some serious abandonment issues here -- those of us who cite the series along with Eightball and Hate and Love & Rockets as the books that helped up our eyes to the potential of this medium in high school and college. Oh, we know why you haven’t been around a lot. We get it it. We live in a world where making a living as a cartoonist is a tricky proposition even for someone whose convention lines wrap around to the other side of the room. And yeah, if we thought for a minute that The New Yorker wanted what we were selling, we’d drop everything in an instant -- and once they did, tales about angsty 20-year-olds might not have the same resonance.

But then you open this collection and realize Tomine is still Tomine. That the sequential floppies have mostly morphed into single-page illustrations (which, wild guess, likely pay orders of magnitude more than full issues ever did), but the cartoonist has used this opportunity to condense short stories into single panel tales. Yeah, some of the content is likely just commissioned supplementals for others’ text stories that do most of the heavy lifting, but divorced of text, Tomine has become a master of conveying real world complexities in the context of a single frame. And as you stare and search, the book store is changed from a stationary object for coffee tables and dusty bookshelves into something more vibrant -- not quite a graphic novel per se, but a portrait, certainly, of the world around him.

The Infinite Wait and Other Stories by Julia Wertz. Koyama Press

There’s a disclaimer disguised as a “fun fact” at the beginning of this collection, explaining away the title as a spoof of those abstract, self-important “New York literary elite” novels. And while anyone familiar with Wertz’s work can happily tell you that taking herself too seriously has never been a cause for concern, The Infinite Wait certainly marks a shift in focus for the cartoonist’s work. Wertz is still mining her only life for material, as she did on her long-standing web strip The Fart Party (yes, she’s acknowledge many times over that she’s not great at naming things), but the move from single paged joke strips to the short story format has afforded the cartoonist a different approach.

This means two immediate things: first, it’s not as funny as often as her older work and second, it’s a lot more real. Yes, there’s all kinds of wisdom in those infinite adages about truth in humor, but dissecting the world into beats over the course of a weekly strip has the tendency to erode nuance from memory, facts and thoughts rearranged in service of punchlines. There are tales of tackling the chronic disease and regretful drinking that defined much her 20s spent in San Francisco and New York.

But don’t let such earnestness dissuade you, coming off the joke-centric world of Wertz’s work thus far -- there are other topics, too, that lend themselves a bit better to the cartoonist’s snark, like crazy parents and a factotum of shitty, short lived jobs (the “wait” that gives the book its. There’s even the occasional fart joke, you know, just for good measure. It all adds up to a work that is, far and away, Wertz’s most honest work to date.

Bjornstrand by Renee French. Picturebox

I’ve got a lot of questions here. Let’s start with the simplest: what’s the word for a sequel released at the same time as the original, which itself might actually be a prequel to the other? A simultequel? A samequel? Whatever the case may be, I suspect that Bjornstrand is not a think meant to exist on its own, but rather a supplement to French’s wonderful new on-going webcomic Bjornstrand, which plays like It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, if Linus swore like a hockey masked sailor. The Picturebox-published mini is a beautiful thing to look at, no surprise there, with French’s characteristic fuzzy style reproduced in a purplish hue that brings to mind classroom mimeograph papers, making something deep inside fight the urge to give it one big huff.

I suspect the whole thing will make more sense at the web series unfolds, giving some background on the giant, adorable beast, who emerges from a body of water like some wide-eyed, beak Godzilla villain. As it stands, it’s a strange sequence of events -- albeit a delightful one with colorful curses, terrifically drawn, as ever. There are none of the grotesqueries here that define some of French’s earlier works, but there’s plenty of mystery to have at. And even if it never makes any more sense that it does today, I’ll never feel cheated, having been afforded the opportunity to spend a few more minutes in the cartoonist’s strange, blurry world.

Sabertooth Vampire Unleashed by Mike Russell. Self-published

Okay, here’s an old one (2011 old, that is), found on the mini comics shelf at the front of Portland’s absurdly wonderful Floating World comics. I’m not sure how I missed it the first go ‘round, though this is probably a good time to note that keeping up with webcomics has never been a particularly strong suit. I’m never sure whether to tell an artist when I’ve passed a book around to nine or ten people -- it’s one of those compliments that has strong overtones of, you know, taking food out of an artist’s mouth, $6 at a time. But yeah, I handed this thing to everyone I know in the Rose City.

Artist Mike Russell, I’ve since discovered, is actually a movie reviewer for The Oregonian. That’s all well and good, but someone needs to give this guy some kind of a cartooning medal for the hilarity he’s managed to squeeze out of the adorably thin premise of a diminutive Dracula with canines longer than he is tall ( had a rabbit once with a similar problem. Far less funny, that). It’s a vampiric disability with delightful consequences -- and some pretty fantastic merchandising tie-ins. In fact, here’s hoping it gets its own Adult Swim short one day, if only so I can buy one of those amazing Sabertooth Vampire mugs.

Gabrielle Bell: The Voyeurs (Uncivilized Books)

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Gabrielle Bell without a sketchbook in her hand. Such things are, naturally, common accessories for indie cartoonists, but Bell seem to don hers like a pair of eyeglasses, as though the world might be headache-inducing and blurry without them. Her autobio strip “Lucky” is the fruit of those sketches, and The Voyeur is the bunching of those fruits, as ever with Bell, at its best when the lines between mundane realities and magical realisms become ever more entangled, the further one ventures into a story.

No better when the cartoonist relates an attempt to adapt Valerie Solanas' infamous SCUM Manifesto into sequential form, unraveling into a tail of adult movie theaters and Japanese assassins, related by Bell’s infinitely interesting mother. Not that the realities themselves are entirely mundane, of course -- particularly in the wake of the artist’s rise to an indie comics celebrity of sorts. There’s the stormy relationship with filmmaker Michel Gondry, the mind-numbing trip to San Diego Comic Con (as highlighted in the first iteration of this nascent column) and the mattress-on-the-floor living that comes with living on an artist’s paycheck in the Big Apple. It’s simultaneously nakedly honest and whimsically untrue (like getting called out by Gondry for skinny dipping merely for the sake of comics fodder), because being a voyeur doesn’t always mean you can trust what you see.

Doug TenNapel: Cardboard (Graphix)

The guy who created Earthworm Jim gets a lifetime pass, so far as I’m concerned. The potential for such laurel resting hasn’t done much to slow Doug TenNapel’s output over the past few years, however. As per usual, the artist’s latest makes no effort to brush off his customary darkness for the benefit of a younger audience, constructing a strange and gritty sort of world through an oversized cardboard box. TenNapel does, however, happily revel in some cliches to get there. There’s a winking nod to the mysterious magic salesman typified by the likes of Gremlins and an origin story that owes more than a little to Pinocchio and possibly The Indian in the Cupboard.

And yes, the kid gets to be a hero here, along with his loving, if deeply-flawed father and the selfless animate cardboard boxer. TenNapel brings this all to a head in an adventurous climax that unfolds in a self-replicating cardboard universe, and judging from the complex cartoony characters rendered in his scratchy inks, he clearly enjoyed drawing ever minute of it.

Jesse Jacobs: By This Shall You Know Him (Koyama Press)

But cardboard worlds has nothing on the blue and purple dreamscapes conjured up by Jesse Jacobs, constructions of complex geometric shapes and winding organic matter, where primitive humans and floating space gods struggle independently with concepts of creation and destruction at what appears to be the dawning of a new universe. It’s a grotesque and playful, which struggles at every level of Jacobs’ broad evolutionary scope -- beings are manifested out of nothing and cave people learn that hard taught biblical lesson of not smashing your friend in a head with a blunt object.

It demands a re-reading and a re-reading after that, and then maybe the whole thing starts to make clear sense. I can’t say for sure yet, as I’m only on the second go-round -- but if you beat me to number three, definitely let me know.

Carol Tyler: You’ll Never Know Book Three: Soldier’s Heart (Fantagraphics)

Eight years and 350 pages later, Carol Tyler concludes her trilogy, the tale of a family impacted by a soldier’s service in the second World War. In this third book, Tyler takes her father on a road trip across seven states to visit the newly constructed WWII memorial, continuing to weave dad and daughter’s lives in a narrative told through scrapbooked memories from diaries, war journals and more traditional means. It’s a touching and heartbreaking examination of the ways in which individual journeys ultimately affected multiple generations of families.

Tyler wraps the tale with the heartfelt story of her arrival at the monument. It’s a nice piece of closure for the three-volume memoir, though, as the epilogue clearly notes, as long as we’re still kicking (as both her parents are at the close of the book, having made it into their 90s), the story’s never quite complete.

Bonus:

Kate Beaton: Hark! a Vagrant Calendars (Drawn & Quarterly)

Is it 2013 yet? I’m getting pretty antsy staring at these two Kate Beaton calendars firmly entombed in their shrink wrap. Three months left to go, and I’m already considering a pre-emptive strike on next year, to get a sneak peak at 12 months worth of historic hilariousity, like my friend in elementary school who never failed to finish the advent calendar by December 5th. Gonna go down to bookstore and pick up some deeply discounted 2012s to tide me over.

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln
By Noah Van Sciver
Fantagraphics Books

That’s short for “hypomania,” Lincoln’s self-prescribed melancholy, a lifelong battle with depression that hit like a ton of bricks in the young lawyer’s mid-20s. For those who have had some trouble accessing one of the most mythologized figures in American history (a category I'd imagine applies to most of us), Noah Van Sciver offers a pretty good place to start -- a young Lincoln moving to a new city, confused and awkward in love and life, given to bouts of darkness and moody poetry. It’s a short small snapshot of the future president’s life -- and it’s in this limited scope that the book finds its success, not beholden to the birth to death summations that often entrap graphic biographers. Instead, The Hypo's relatively limited scope afford the cartoonist the ability to approach the historical giant as a human, offering an empathetic examination of a troubled individual destined for greatness.

Van Sciver also touches upon, but doesn't dwell too heavily in some of the more controversial speculations from the period -- Lincoln's rumored homosexuality and rendezvous with prostitutes -- but only in so much as they help paint a larger portrait of that period of Lincoln's life, struggling to gain an occupational foothold in Illinois's new capital and to find a wife. It's all a grand departure from the standard fare that populates Van Sciver's consistently hilarious series Blammo, but it's clear that his heart is in the material, offering a well rounded and human portrait we don't often get of figures of this magnitude.

Snake Oil #7
By Chuck Forsman

Meet Witchzard (Witch plus Wizard), your new favorite, excessively angsty high school metal band. Listen and fall in love, as they take you down to the "Blood Pond" ("When I was six years old / daddy took me down / He made me swim / He pushed me in / Whoa-oa-oa Blood Pond"). They hate their parents, they hate their school, they huff gas and see demons. But maybe attempting to bite the head off a rat for the climactic solo isn't the wisest choice when playing the big high school dance. You can lead a horse to the blood pond, but you can't make it embrace the torture of small animals, a lesson Chuck Forsman imparts upon Witchzard the hard way in the latest issue of his excellent Snake Oil mini.

High school is hard. And so is metal. Foresman knows these things, and while the cartoonist sometimes peals off a joke at his characters' expense, the tale of Witchzard is never excessively cruel or unsympathetic.

Drama
By Raina Telgeimier
Scholastic

Middle school, however, is even harder, and Raina Telgemeier's followup to her smash kids comic Smile is, like middle school itself, all about identity. Like its more expressly autobiographic predecessor, the book is targeted toward young readers (ages 10 to 14, by Scholastic's estimation), but has a good deal to offer those who've somehow made it out of all of that alive -- particularly readers who've done time on the other side of the curtain of school theater performances. Hampered by a glass-shattering singing voice and driven by unbridled enthusiasm, young Callie throws herself wholehearted into the crew of a middle school musical, a comedy of errors, quite naturally, in her wake.

Telgemeier's single word title is as apt as one would expect, as her cast attempts to stage a play in amongst struggles with unrequited love, burgeoning sexuality and general adolescent confusion. But while hers is a tale, fittingly, rife with youthful drama, the book avoids adding a "melo-" prefix to the proceedings, on a whole, playing smartly to its readership without pandering (a fate that too often befalls the genre) and always tempered by her delightful cartooning style. For anyone who's ever put themselves on the line for the sake of middle school theater, there's plenty of cringeworthy moments amongst the triumphs, but it certainly beats cracking open your own yearbook.

Turtie Needs Work
By Steve Wolfhard
Koyama Press

Do you really think you're going to find a better home for the three dollar bills burning a hole in your pocket than Koyama Press's re-printing of Turtie Needs Work? That price comes out to roughly $0.21 a laugh -- a jaw-dropping bargain in this rough economy. Really, you can't afford not to pick it up -- like poor Turtie himself, servant to a Factotum-like job hunt. And really, is it any surprised? Certainly the tiny turtle isn't dressed for the job in his oversized letter "T" t-shirt. But thankfully we can all learn and laugh as the diminutive reptile fails at a diverse array of careers, two panels at a time. At least there's some peace of mind in knowing that turtles are anatomically incapable of going homeless. ]]> http://boingboing.net/2012/08/01/comics-rack-the-hypo-snake-o.html/feed 7 http://boingboing.net/2012/07/04/spinner-rack-boing-boings-n.html http://boingboing.net/2012/07/04/spinner-rack-boing-boings-n.html#comments Wed, 04 Jul 2012 17:22:02 +0000 Brian Heater http://boingboing.net/?p=168743

Photo: Ryan Hyde (cc)

"Comic books are cheap, shoddy, anonymous. Children spend their good money for bad paper, bad English, and more often than not, bad drawing." -- Dr. Fredrick Wertham, 1950s anti-comic book crusader, quoted from his book, Seduction of the Innocent.

Comics Rack 01

Nurse Nurse, by Katie Skelly (Sparkplug Books)

If there's any justice in the world, Katie Skelly's mini comics collection will one day be adapted into some strange, low budget sci-fi-sploitation flick, complete with firework explosions and barely visible fishing wires suspending strange and wonderful spaceships on their journeys across the solar system. And if, god forbid, Skelly should lose creative input along the way, perhaps some over entitled studio executive will chose to spell things out a bit more clearly, with a Corman-esque title like Vixen Nurses from Venus.

Not that Nurse Nurse isn't a perfectly adequate title, of course, but if we're ever going to sell Skelly's vision of outerspace anime filtered through the lo-fi comic zine aesthetics of John Porcellino and the like to late night basic cable, we're going to have to punch that name up a bit, right? Does Nurse Nurse convey the sort of butterfly-goop-induce psychedelic trips and panda-headed space pirate planet-hopping adventure the New York-based cartoonist has managed to convey in her child-like thick penned line? Perhaps -- and really, as long as we can squeeze in a handful of tracks from cosmic dreamboats Quality Confections -- a sort of teen-pop version of the Spiders From Mars -- onto the soundtrack of our hypothetical adaptation, the box office returns should be enough to fund a Neptune-based sequel.

Blindspot #2, by Joseph Remnant (Self-published)

If we were Joseph Remnant, we'd be rubbing elbows with Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton on some French villa as we speak. After all, the cartoonist was handpicked by Harvey Pekar to draw Cleveland, the book that has, sadly, something of a posthumous epilogue for the autobio comics pioneer turned reluctant movie star -- an encapsulation of the writer's life entwined with a brief history of the city he loved. Thankfully, however, instead of hobnobbing with counter culture comics bigwigs, Remnant opted to put together a long-awaited second issue of his self-published floppy, Blindspot.

Like his heavily-hatched artwork, which has drawn more than its share of well-deserved comparisons to Crumb (thanks, at least in part, to the Pekar connection), the decision to serialize books in this manner harkens back to another era, increasingly rare in the face of full-length graphic novels, which, among other things, fit more comfortable on the shelves of a Barnes & Noble. The decision provides, among other things, the opportunity to break away from Pekar's well-defined vision, which has driven Remnant's most prominent work thus far. Blindspot's best pieces are its shorter ones. The lead off tale of a self-obsessed indie musician and a single-page portrait of a jovial security guard are highlights, along with the customary Pekar tribute and a back page wink to a storyline abandoned from the series' first issue.

Sammy the Mouse Book One, by Zak Sally (La Mano)

Visualize, for a moment, what Walt Disney's nightmares must have looked like -- now imagine what William Burroughs must have seen on those occasions when the dream machine beamed happy visions into his sleeping brain. Sammy the Mouse has made a home in the overlap between these two worlds, bossed around by a disembodied deity, hassled by an abusive alcoholic duck dressed like Captain Ahab and generally terrorized by a pointy-toothed skeletal creature with a knack for popping up at the most inopportune moments.

Sammy the Mouse is a strange fever dream of the book, initially off-putting in the somewhat grotesque filter it applies to Toon Town, but ultimate totally engrossing in the unfolding of its strange and complex storyline. This new edition is also beautifully crafted, handprinted by the author himself, thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, which allowed him to move this collection of minis to his own self-run press.

San Diego Diary, by Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized Books)

Okay, okay, so this is an old one (released this time last year), but what better way to prepare oneself from the spiritually straining mindfuck that is San Diego Comic Con than the story of an indie cartoonist plunged into nerd culture's biggest pop-culture bacchanalia? Anyone who's ever read Gabrielle Bell's autobiographical work can tell you that the artist clearly just wasn't made for these times, a fact evidenced by extreme social awkwardness in even the most subdued of social gatherings. This, placed against a background of throngs of costumed showgoers (please see exhibit A: the morbidly obese Batman on the cover) and MTV pool parties makes for an incredibly entertaining affair.

Granted, Bell's arguably at her best when indulging magical realist flights of fancy (see: Cecil and Jordan in New York), but San Diego Diary offers a wonderful portrait of the gulf between the worlds of independent and mainstream comics cultures.The inclusion of roughs at the end is a nice added bonus as well, offering some insight into the sketchbook, which never leaves Bell's side.