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Five For Friday #34—Anthologies
posted June 17, 2005
Recommend Five Anthologies
1.
Zap
2.
Weirdo
3.
Raw
4.
Kramer's Ergot
5.
Lapin
*****
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*****
Andrew Mansell
1.
McSweeney's
2.
Smithsonian Book of Comic Strips
3.
The Comic Strip Century (available as a 20.00 re-issue thru B&N!!!!!!)
4.
Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions
5.
Rosetta 2
*****
Chris Pitzer
Taboo
Fly in My Eye
Monkeysuits
Bizarros
And.... Wait for it...
The Projects. (
Telstar or
Superior!)
*****
Alan David Doane
Kramer's Ergot 5
Zero Zero
The Top Shelf anthologies
Comics Festival!
Origins of Marvel Comics
*****
Benjamin Bayliss
Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist (Dark Horse)
Grendel: Black,White,and Red (Dark Horse)
The Big Book of Losers (DC Comics)
Bizarro Comics (DC Comics)
The Bush Junta (Fantagraphics Books)
*****
Jeet Heer
1. The
Chicago Tribune sunday section, circa 1920-1940. Every week: Frank King, Harold Gray, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, etc.
2.
Mad, under Kurtzman's editorship -- the springroot of modern American satire.
3.
Arcade -- the one edited by Spiegelman and Griffith. The cream of the crop of first wave underground comics.
4.
Twisted Sisters: A Collection of Bad Girl Art, edited by Diane Noomin. (Also, to a lesser degree, the magazine anthology from Kitchen Sink books of the same name). An intense reminder of how many great women artists have done underground art.
5.
Drawn and Quarterly -- under the editing of Chris Oliveros. The best overview of the post
Love and Rockets generation. Especially interesting because you can see the evolution of Oliveros's aesthetic, with a greater attention to design and production values each time the anthology is relaunched.
As I said, this is just stuff that hasn't been mentioned. If I had to list the absolute best ever, it would be:
Mad,
Arcade,
Weirdo,
Raw,
Drawn and Quarterly. Some runner-ups:
Snake Eyes (very underrated: a fusion of Raw and Weirdo),
Blab,
Anarchy Comix (the best political anthology ever).
*****
Dave Knott
Drawn & Quarterly
Heavy Metal (before the Eastman buyout)
SPX
Raw
Rosetta
*****
Marc Sobel
Mome
Crisis Magazine
SPX (esp 2001-02)
9/11 Anthologies
Little Lit
*****
Bart Beaty
The current best in five languages:
1.
Ego Comme X (French)
2.
Nosotros Somos los Muertos (Spanish)
3.
Strapazin (German)
4.
Quadrado (Portuguese)
5.
Black (Italian)
*****
Pat Dean
1.
Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics
2.
Mysteries In Space: The Best of DC Science Fiction from Fireside Books
3.
Legal Action Comics #2
4.
BOP #1
5. No specific issue, but select
Dark Horse Presents issues were very solid.
*****
Nick Mullins
In no particular order:
•
Nosotros Somos Los Muertos
•
Lapin
•
Kramer's Ergot
•
Drawn and Quarterly (especially the initial run and the May 2000 Vol. 3)
•
Raw
And because they haven't been mentioned, I liked the Viz anthology,
Pulp, and
Rosetta 2. And some of the 1970s and 80s
Heavy Metals were good.
*****