It’s been an annual tradition (for 2 years running) that I
have not written a “Best Comics Of 20XX” list. I think that decision continues to
be a good one for me. I generally dislike the idea that any one book can be the
consensus pick of any given year when there is so much art being made. I
haven’t read many of the works that folks are describing as “best,” and likely
won’t until mid-2017. Some of it I will surely never read. There were also many books I wanted to read this year but
didn’t get my hands on. I can’t imagine being able to confidently say “These
books are the best books published in 2016,” especially in a medium as wide and
deep as comics. “Best” implies a finality even if the writer is only discussing
the books they read, not the entire field.
Instead I’m writing about books that challenged me as a
reader in 2016. I think this year, above the last two, has a lot more variety
in what the definition of “challenge” means. Unlike a traditional end of the
year list, the only qualifier to get on this list was that I had to read the
book in 2016.
Since this is a list
of comics that challenged me as a reader, it’s intensely personal. But I
suspect that you can’t make a best of list without it adhering to your own
tastes. I think that personal opinion has proven itself to be true again and
again in 2016.
Part 1| Part 2 |
Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Complete List
Carpet Sweeper Tales - Julie Doucet, Drawn and Quarterly @drawnandquarterly
Carpet Sweeper Tales demanded a kind of action from me as a reader that most books don’t think about asking. Reading is an active thing - but a quiet thing, most of the time. So when the first thing I read in Carpet Sweeper Tales is the command to read everything out loud, it made me think about the ways we interact with art and art interacts with us. How we communicate through art. I also loved Carpet Sweeper Tales for its unique perspective on what comics can be - I love the use of collage in this piece. I’d like to see more collage in comics work. The metacognition of Carpet Sweeper Tales, Doucet’s brilliant inversion and subversion of the her characters and the source material made this a fascinating read in 2016.
End of a Fence came out at the end of 2015 and unfairly missed a lot the best-of season. I wrote a review of End of a Fence in April this year, so I won’t spend too much time rereviewing it here, but Muradov is as brilliant as ever in this first kuš! mono. The book’s figurative heaviness, the searing heat of the thing, as well as Muradov’s reference-laden prose, made End of a Fence a comic to read and reread and reread. I’d be happy if I understood three quarters of all of it, but I doubt I’m there yet.
Urkowtiz’s comics continue to inspire me. She’s Done It All! is a melancholy and wickedly funny comic. In Urkowitz’s previous work I have seen a spiritual searching, and this feels like an amplification of that searching. What is God? and How and Why and For What Reason? These comics scratch at that human desire for understanding and the need for awe and closeness, and compelled me to reexamine myself in 2016.
This is an understated book, a combination of comics and the poetic short story that inspired them. I’m still writing my review, but Chihoi’s pencil work in this book goes beyond expectation. The dream logic of it, the way characters crash like waves around one another. I found the comic hard to unravel but its denseness was part of its appeal.
Bernadou’s ambitious pantomime comics were a surprise delight late in the year. The story took on a fable-like quality that avoided easy definition. Focused on the growth of a young woman, the trials of womanhood, and a fraught relationship with her father, Bernadou’s writing gave this comic a darkness that was at times heartbreaking and at other times overwhelmingly frustrating. This was a great introduction to Bernadou’s work and a fantastic book to cap the year with.
There are 30 comics in this year’s list. Each entry will contain 5 books, and we’ll wrap up with the complete list. See you soon!
You will also receive a PDF of each comic via the e-mail address you supply as the books are published.
Extra notes on the Retrofit Comics Fall 2016 Subscription: These 6 releases will come out in roughly their listed order, but there may be some changes as we go through the year.
“You’re pretty optimistic for a guy who’s been shot in the back.”
New York City, 1975.
The heroin epidemic is in full swing. An art-dealing dope pusher and his deadly drug mule, two Vietnam veterans turned hit-men, an optimistic undercover cop and a renegade reporter with a nasty drinking problem all collide in the naked city. But who will come out on top after everyone’s hit rock bottom?
You will also receive a PDF of each comic via the e-mail address you supply as the books are published.
Extra notes on the Retrofit Comics Fall 2016 Subscription: These 6 releases will come out in roughly their listed order, but there may be some changes as we go through the year.
You will also receive a PDF of each comic via the e-mail address you supply as the books are published.
Extra notes on the Retrofit Comics Fall 2016 Subscription: These 6 releases will come out in roughly their listed order, but there may be some changes as we go through the year.
When MariNaomi first meets Mirabai in grade school, Mirabai seems to be more of a bully than a friend. But over the course of time, their relationship shifts from tense to friendly, to drifting apart, to reconnecting and finding something much deeper.
I Thought You Hated Me is a comics memoir about female friendship, a story that doesn’t involve stale tropes like acrimonious competition or fighting over boys. It explores the complexity and depth of this particular friendship through snapshot-vignettes of relevant moments over thirty years, painting a portrait of something unique but relatable, common but extraordinary.
Published by Retrofit Comics / Big Planet Comics
9.5″ x 7″, 64 pages. $9 Full-color cover with b+w interior. Perfect-bound
“You’re pretty optimistic for a guy who’s been shot in the back.”
New York City, 1975.
The heroin epidemic is in full swing. An art-dealing dope pusher and his deadly drug mule, two Vietnam veterans turned hit-men, an optimistic undercover cop and a renegade reporter with a nasty drinking problem all collide in the naked city. But who will come out on top after everyone’s hit rock bottom?
“You’re pretty optimistic for a guy who’s been shot in the back.”
New York City, 1975.
The heroin epidemic is in full swing. An art-dealing dope pusher and his deadly drug mule, two Vietnam veterans turned hit-men, an optimistic undercover cop and a renegade reporter with a nasty drinking problem all collide in the naked city. But who will come out on top after everyone’s hit rock bottom?
