Oops, they did it again, or: No Maus?
After all the blogosphere grumbling over the inclusion of Watchmen on Time's Top 100 Novels (1923-Present), the mag ups the ante and drops a list of The All Time Top Ten Graphic Novels.They are (in alphabetical order):
- Berlin: City of Stones (Lutes)
- Blankets (Thompson)
- Bone (Smith)
- Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Deitch)
- The Dark Knight Returns (Miller)
- David Boring (Clowes)
- Ed the Happy Clown (Brown)
- Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Ware)
- Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (Hernandez)
- Watchmen (Moore/Gibbons)
Let the grousing begin.
posted by Ben @ 10:00 PM
31 comments
31 Comments:
Ooooh Nayiri's going to be mad. She hates Blankets. And where's The Sandman? Seriously folks.
Personally, I thought Jimmy Corrigan was one of the most atrociously useless things I've ever read. For the record: the story was boring and the art was ugly. Take that, comic bookians.
wow, i have huge issues with this list.
don't know where to begin ranting, so i shan't.
but i much prefer this comics journal list.
And my all-time fave comixbook is probably Jaime Hernandez's LOCAS.
Oh my effing goodness, I think I just had a coronary thrombosis.
Unless you're Helen Keller, then yes, yes you can call the art in Jimmy Corrigan ugly. So the guy draws a whole lot of buildings and chose an unattractive main character. How groundbreaking. Not only is it ugly, I'll raise you an obnoxious, a pointless, and an endorsed by Dave Eggers ack gag vomit.
1. Why don't I throw more fuel on the fire and link to Time's 25 Graphic Novels, 25 Years. According to the same Time critic who created that all-time-top-ten list, these 25 books create the foundation for "a basic graphic literature library." Thoughts?
2. And while we're on the topic, smarty pantses, why doesn't someone post his/her all-time top ten list.
Okay, that 25-list could be a lot worse.
My personal idiosyncrasies might lean towards:
--substituting "32 Stories" for "Summer Blonde" (it's lo-fi but more interesting to me aesthetically)
--Seth's "It's A Good Life, If You Don't Weaken" needs to be in there
--substitute "Palomar" with Jaime. Last year, I coughed up to buy all 20 volumes of the collected Love and Rockets. Then discovered I had trouble with Gilbert (sadistic fuck; though I had liked him at first) but Jaime just got better and better.
--"Sandman" is the only thing on it I haven't read. I've been meaning to, though.
Actually, yeah. And Seeley & Kane's.
Dashiell, did I hear you say once you were originally from here?
Whereabouts? Did you go to school here?
I moved here from India, and teach at Canisius College.
And I'm hoping that the proprietor of La Mer Coloree Se Geignant (see links list) will favor us with his choices too.
Never mind, that smartypants move didn't work. I was trying to link to Pullquote En Franglais on which Ben's site had been frenchified on the links list.
Well, you alls are way more-versed in the ways of the graphic novel. I am playing catch-up like crazy and haven't read large sections of the canon. But here are some of my favorites:
I love--nay luuuurve--Seth's It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken.
The film noir junkie in me is all over Frank Miller's A Dame to Kill For (from the Sin City saga).
I was an obsessive Batman fan as a kid, so Dark Knight Returns, Killing Joke, and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth are near and dear.
Nayiri introduced me to Mr. Bendis via Fortune & Glory (which is really funny) and Dash lent me Torso which is just epic and sick (in the best sense of the word).
Uh... Uhhh... What else. Well, Jimmy Corrigan needs finishing. (I'm a huge fan of Ware's aesthetic, but I find that in a graphic novel setting it's really difficult. But maybe that's because I'm a cretin.) One day I will complete Watchmen. (I know-- sacrilege.) I know I need to get Maus read (I've had my friend Dave's copy for, seriously, about three years), ditto Persepolis. Oh and I'm really looking forward to Black Hole. Anything described as Freaks and Geeks as envisioned by David Cronenberg is ace with me.
And with that, I end this nerd transmission.
It's a story with a flaccid, unattractive, boring main character. Yeah, I said flaccid. Only shallow, vapid girls use words like that. Oh, and girls who quote Mae West not ironically.
Also, minimalism in the mighty vortex of Eggersville does not count as anything, as it exists only in that vacuum of suckage that he has created.
Though I agree with putting The Fixer on the list, I also think Box Office Poison is worthy of mention. And where's Andi Watson?
Furthermore, From Hell was utterly tedious. Serial killers are so 1994.
Dashiell, I lused to live two houses away from Queen City Books (my grad-school slum-pad). And yeah, I know Clarence well.
Okay, I've been meaning to ask ever since I became one of Ben's "imaginary friends".
How exactly do all of you know each other?
And here's nerd crack Girish style:
Ben, if you got to Cinetrix's site and click on Pullquote En Franglais and then click on the link to your site, you can see your blog (and all the comments) in French.
You may have to click refresh a coupla times along the way, not sure why.
Oh my god, I'm like such a philistine! If by props, you want me to say that From Hell is kind of like brussel sprouts, then I'll say it. Yes, it has great value as a creative work, but it tastes like shit.
And as far as Jimmy Corrigan is concerned, I think your statement about the boring, unattractive bit being the point is an utter cop out. It's like those bad writers who say things like, "Oh, I used stilted terrible Yoda-like sentence structure on purpose because that's my style." Good for Chris Ware if he intentionally made Jimmy Corrigan flaccid. It doesn't make Corrigan an interesting character, it doesn't make all the hipster hype about the book being sooooo groundbreaking any more legitimate, and it doesn't create a story that I think is worth paying any attention to. You know, other than for mocking and loathing.
And as far as your attempted insult with the flaccid bit, kiddo: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! You're very smart and clever. I think I just swooned a little bit.
Well this comic chat became a little spirited, didn't it?
Girish-- we all know each other having gone to college in Boston. I went to Emerson with Nayiri and Marcella, I worked in a video store with Dash who went to BU with Tim... It's a tangled web like that.
Oh, you did NOT call me "Marci." That was just low. That's meaner and sillier than the whole me being well-adjusted and never having been sad part.
Note: I as much use for self-involved douche fiction as I do for sad little man fiction, so I'm not discriminating.
And I like how because I hate the book and the character, you assume I have some deep hatred of boring, uggo, depression cases. Quite frankly, I enjoy them. They're fun to poke with sharpened sticks because they don't fight back.
Jesus Christ on a monkey, I leave you people alone with comic book lists for less than a day and you all go completely bananahead.
1. I HATE "Blankets" and I have no problem admitting it. I mean, shit. I sold it to Nate for $5 and Chinese takeout. And I'm proud of the fact that I'm lacking a soul. It's what makes me me.
2. I think I don't like you, Dashiell. So what if girls only care about aesthetic beauty? IT'S FUCKING COMIC BOOKS THEY HAVE TO AT LEAST LOOK NICE FOR PETE'S SAKE. But I do agree thatn "From Hell" should be on there even though Marcella doesn't like it.
3. Girish, when's your birthday? I'll send you "The Sandman".
4. Ditto Dashiell and Ben for "Persepolis".
5. And so what if Dashiell's getting back on my good side for making a good list? I forgive. But I don't forget.
6. How happy amd I that my protége mentioned Andi Watson before I had to?
7. And Marcella likes "Box Office Poison" because there's naked people in it. There's nothing wrong with that. (High-five for the Raven reference, by the way.)
All this arguing is making me tired.
Aww, how precious. Dashiell tried to insult my broadly desireableness! So that's why you've been so defensive about Jimmy Corrigan. Is somebody feeling a little extra flaccid, unattractive and boring today?
You implied that there were similiarities. I was being generous and assuming you were saying that for some sort of effect, or perhaps to expound upon the book's pathetic theme. And I also assumed that you were behaving like most people do when they talk about how tragic and depressed they are: it's mostly a totally childish act and an attempt to seem deep and artistically tortured when in fact said person is bland and uninteresting and unoriginal. You need to chill out, guy.
Man, this is a tasty fight!
However, I am super pissed that Ben didn't mention me at all when Girish asked how we know each other.
Whatever, comic books are for dirty, ass-eating fags.
PS: I did really like the of Maus though.
god dammit, I hate how the html gets all fucked up. That should have said "I like the movie version of Maus, though"
I liked when they took the movie version of Maus went to the wild, wild west.
Josh, I'm kind of ashamed to know you, so I try to avoid the topic whenever possible.
Joshua, you know, I thought of that yesterday.
So, how did you guys get your first audience with the President Of Fagistan, anyway?
Nayiri, so sweet of you to offer...
Girish, contrary to popular belief, I'm nice.
OK, so I'll 'fess up... Josh is also a graduate of Emerson, so that's how I know him. (And for the record: Nayiri introduced me to him while we were in Marcella's dorm room.)
Oh man, Ben, I forgot that. I was doing Devil Voice recordings on Marcella and/or Nayiri's voice mail! But that was years before you "re-met" me and said I was creepy.
Man, I am never going to live down that creepy comment. (And for the record: Josh is creepy.)
It's pretty cool you all have your own little blog corner here.
I've been trying to get some of my college friends to start blogs but none of the wusses will.
Oh my god, I REMEMBER those devil voicemails! God, Satan is the best!
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