Comics: Best of

A List post:

#1 Slam Dunk

For the record I am not a fan of Slam Dunk because I am a fan of basketball. I am a fan of basketball because of Slam Dunk. This was voted the best manga of all time by some people in Japan. As unbelievable as it is that any Japanese high school team produces dunkers in the general proliferation that Slam Dunk portrays, it is deeply deep portrayal of a basketball team. You can't flaw it on any grounds, the artwork is exceptional, the characters likeable, it is humourous and heartfelt. You could compare it to 'Life is Beautiful' in its ability to do so much, without relying on the Haulocuast. It is a masterpiece.

#2 Watchmen

Alan Moore's finest, a humane treatment of the superhero. Following an 'avengers' like squad known as the watchmen who are vigilanties years beyond their prime as the second generation. They all undergo personal crisis of one kind or another, whether they have sold out, gone soft, married for money, lost their humanity, can't let go or been thrown out of a window.
It treats costumed heroes as frail human beings, in all their dignity and western comics hasn't produced anything like it. It has other experimental chapters that defy my comprehension like 'Fearful Symmitry' a chapter where the frames are all symmetrical, the first frame is the same as the last frame, the middle a mirror image of the frame next to it. I can't figure out how tool did this with '40, 6 and 2' and I don't know what kind of mind is required to devise a chapter like that.

#3 Vagabond

I read vagabond before slam dunk, because vagabond is current. But I picked up Slam Dunk because of Vagabond, which introduced me to Miyamoto Musashi. Drawn in the sumi-e style of traditional ink painting, interspersed with water colours this series is one of the best drawn and best written pieces ever.
Never has philosophy been so beautiful to behold, and it reminds you how cool Japan was before the Meiji restoration. Not that I saw it. But I think its easy to say that this series has already produced more worthwhile pages than Batman has in all 90 years or so of its publication.

#4 Batman: No Man's Land

The best editorial spectacular ever. It was just a neat premis if unplausable. Basically Gotham City becomes a feudal state, defined by the archcriminals territories. And Batman over a year has to reconquer it. Put in power supplies and take down the villains one by one.
It contains some of the best work of the penguin, two-face, Bane, Lex Luthor, Poison Ivy, Ventriloquist & Scarface and so on. And unusually it is the work of a bunch of different artists and a bunch of different writers. It's the pinnacle in my view of what the western style of comic could ever possibly achieve.

#5 Art Spiegals Maus

Pretty much a holocaust story, but told through a quite literal metaphore where jews are mice and Nazi's are cats, it is an incredibly personal piece of work told through the graphic novel medium.

#6 Osamu Tezuka efforts

I went to an exhibition at NGV of Tezuka's works and was blown away by the volume. I haven't read them but someday I hope to. The guy had as many ideas as Stan lee but was far more sophisticated and imaginative. To this day i still refuse to believe it was possible for him to do so much. He probably should be further up the list, but alas I haven't actually read his works. I have observed them from a safe distance, it is probably safe to say that he will long be remembered as the greatest name in comics for many years to come.

#7 Kevin Smith efforts

Kevin Smith did Guardian Devil using his favorite villain Mysterio (whom he loves because he is so bad) in new and creative ways. He then got the job of reviving Green Arrow, and his works Quiver and the renewal series self titled 'Green Arrow' that's as much as I've seen, but Kevin Smith you can tell has both a genuine love of the convoluted comic world as well as an active imagination that leads him to experiment. He can do plots like most comic writers can't. Jeph Loeb seemed to be on par until his recent shitefest 'Red Hulk' and every day my doubts as to his true ability seem to grow.

#8 I'm bored of this...

But I'll finish with this, Manga is where it is at right now, because of quality control. There are problems with the lack of imagination in Manga in general, howevr this doesn't stop it from being more adventurous with its subject matter, consider manga has comics like Initial D - focussed on drifting, and Yakitaki - about the pursuit of a Japanese national bread.
It is also littered with otaku friendly crap like Yugi-Oh and Pokemon, designed specifically to promote convoluted collector merchandise and rules to feed hungry nerd brains.
But it is obviously free enough to let out the breakout works like Vagabond. In the West an Alan Moore run on batman like 'The Killing Joke' or even Frank Miller's arguably best work ever 'Batman: Year One' are unsustainable, and for all the progress towards elevating the arc through commissioning the .02% of writers that are good including Kevin Smith, Frank Miller (arguably), Alan Moore (who's never coming back to DC) and Jeph Loeb (who is suffering from 'enough rope') they are followed by hacks in most cases that immediately undo all the gains they make and take it back to somewhere worse. There is almost an economic 'Comic Bubble' effect.
Even then, it isn't just a matter of quality.
The Killing Joke was great because it revealed something about the joker, and permenantly changed the role of Barbara Gordon as batgirl. You just can't do that every week. It's untenable. That's why i think ultimately comics will move towards the manga model of closed narratives that have a beggining middle and end.
So generally that's what I'd point you towards if you were looking at reading some comics, the best works are closed. As in you know when they begin and when they end. Furthermore they are about something. Really they are books with a changed dynamic relationship between the visual and the narrative.