The Best American Comics 2014

I really enjoyed this year's volume of The Best American Comics, and that's due not only to the comics themselves but to the guest editor, Scotdt McCloud, who helpfully assembled the book by theme and wrote some very informative introductions.

The first section has some big names in the comix biz, beginning with Jaime Hernandez and a kind of Miami noir story "Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners," and Jaime's brother Gilbert, with a story of young alienation, "Marble Season." Charles Burns is represented with a portion of his novel, "The Hive," and R. Crumb and Aline Komisky-Crumb contribute "High Road to the Shmuck Seat." The shmuck seat, I've learned, is the seat in the restaurant that faces away from the door, and thus the occupant can't see what is going in the restaurant. There is a lovely panel where Robert is getting blown by Aline, so, NSFW.

Raina Telgemeier's "Drama" is another story of the awkwardness of adolescence, and Tom Hart's "RL," about a couple that has a child that dies, is excerpted with a section that shows the perils of moving before your real estate sale is final. I liked this bit: "The New York arc requires you to either make exponentially more money--or get out. Where is up to you: New Jersey, Long Island, or Westchester, all of which require you to ruthlessly keep your attention, money, and nerves focused on New York, whose bloody, swollen billboard eyes remain fixed on you in return."

"Saga, Chapter 7," by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, is a more traditional fantasy comic (there are no superhero comics included, but that is due to some sort of legal problem--McCloud declares Marvel's "Hawkeye" the best of the year).

McCloud also includes a section of Chris Ware's Building Stories, which I wrote about last year.

In the historical area, there are excerpts from comics about civil rights leader John Lewis, the Carter Family, and the history of hip-hop.

Sometimes the comics here are very strange. I loved, loved, loved Michael DeForge's "Canadian Royalty," which must be the work of a very interesting mind, while I couldn't make heads or tails of Theo Ellsworth's "The Understanding Monster--Book One," which has a floating head through most of it. In a section McCloud calls "The Kuiper Belt," there are some very avant garde comics, which are mostly interesting because of the art, especially Victor Caro's "Bittersweet Romance," and Aidan Koch's "Blue Period." Gerald Jablonski's "Schweinhund" is so text heavy, though, that I couldn't read it, as it would require a magnifying glass.

The volume ends with a daily strip, now defunct, called "Cul de Sac" which I unfortunately have never seen before. It was written and drawn by Richard Thompson until he couldn't do it anymore, because of the effects of Parkinson's disease. McCloud includes the last week it ran, which was a repeat, and I enjoyed the main character of Alice, who is kind of reminiscent of Bill Watterson's Calvin. The last strip, a Sunday colored one, talks about the dying art form of comic strips, which is sadly true. As fewer and fewer people read newspapers, the placement of those strips in them becomes a desert island of sorts. Of course comic strips can still be read on the Web, but one has to search them out. There are no funny pages anymore.

But, as witnessed by this fascinating collection, the art of comics is still thriving creatively.