Perhaps it takes a little hubris to call a collection THE BEST
AMERICAN COMICS 2008, but it’s hard to argue with a grouping
this good. Sure, you can quibble here and there, but as a whole,
this is about as good as the art form gets, showing the remarkable
highs comics can --- and regularly do --- reach. And as a bonus,
it’s a wonderful entry for someone who is unfamiliar with
comics but who wants to know more or read something in the
format.

The stories are brief and varied and run the spectrum of themes
and moods. Series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (creators of
the excellent DRAWING WORDS AND WRITING PICTURES) teamed up this
year with editor Lynda Barry (the artist behind the wildly
inventive WHAT IT IS), and their combined viewpoint yields a unique
collection of some truly thought-provoking work here. Both DRAWING
WORDS AND WRITING PICTURES and WHAT IT IS mined a similar territory
--- the forces of creativity, what makes the visionary mind bring
forth clearly defined work, and how to turn thoughts into comic art
--- that informs the choices they’ve made in THE BEST
AMERICAN COMICS 2008. It’s not surprising, then, that most of
the choices here are from single writers/artists rather than
writer-artist teams, which shows how powerful the creative
combination can be.

They’ve also passed over standard superhero fare (although
a note at the beginning explains they would have liked to include
an excerpt from BATMAN: YEAR 100 but couldn’t, due to
licensing issues). Instead, they offer up work from a varying swath
of comics luminaries, some well known and long-established in the
industry (Matt Groening, Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware) and others
less known but equally provocative (Gene Luen Yang’s stunning
AMERICAN BORN CHINESE is excerpted here; if you haven’t
fallen in love with this work yet, now’s your chance).

Some comics benefit more than others from this presentation.
Alison Bechdel’s long-running comic series Dykes to Watch
Out For is one of the best examples of how brilliant, funny
and poignant comics can be, and while it’s wonderful to see
it getting recognition here, the five one-page strips collected
seem out of place and out of context. As a whole, though, most of
the samples in the book come as sweet surprises, something new
coming out of the blue (Kevin Pyle’s THE FORBIDDEN ZONE is a
wonderfully pleasant surprise that pops out toward the end).

Barry and series editors Abel and Madden deserve credit for the
fine pacing they’ve given THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2008. The
mood flows naturally and smoothly from one work to the next, which
is not an easy feat given the variety of works they’ve chosen
to work with. It’s a major pitfall of most anthology
collections --- the juxtaposition of voices can be a jarring
reminder of how non-cohesive the books can be --- but the editors
here sagely avoid it. When you finish, you’re aware that
you’ve read more than two dozen different creators’
works, but they’ve all been selected so well that the
lingering effect is the seamlessness of the artful quality
contained within.