“:::THESE GUNS AGAINST THE WORLD:::”
Por Matt Séneca
Publicado originalmente en mattseneca dot tumblr dot com el 23 de diciembre de 2012.
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11 great comics from 2012.
1. “Wayward Girls”, Michiel Budel
Really sweet, funny, vaguely child-molesty comics that read like Winsor McCay attempting “The Simpsons”. The most addictive thing, and he makes new ones online like all the time.
2. “The End of the Fucking World”, Charles Forsman
The most beautiful piece of Americana made in years. Every page Forsman draws is a minimalist masterpiece. Huge and heartbreaking. A modern triumph disguised as an episode of Peanuts.
3. “Comics” by Jonny Negron
Poetry in motion, the emergence of a major artist. Don’t sleep on his Glacier/Glazier zine.
4. “Hellberta” part 1 (Dec. 2011) and part 2, Michael Comeau
A docu-comic about a spiritual revival in Canada starring, you guessed it, Wolverine. Beautifully printed. The most punk rock thing in 30 years.
5. “Zarath-Usala”, Johannes Rodenacker
The story of the year, this one. I went to the New York Art Book Fair on my day off, a really cloudy, sweaty Friday in September I think. I saw some okay shit there but the only thing I bought was this comic that had somehow ended up at a table in the photography room, an eye-bleedingly red and black Risograph zine from a German publisher by an artist I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere else. A terrifying pagan fable disguised as some mutant Wonder Woman/Gary Panter hybrid, this is the funniest shit I read in 2012 and the biggest breath of fresh air I’ve gotten from reading comics since I was a kid. Amazing, transformative, totally gross pop art from some random dude out of nowhere. Pogo Books is the name of the publisher, it’s worth finding one of these things.
6. “Cyber Surfer”, Alex Schubert
The most elegantly composed book of 2012; also a groan inducingly goofy humor comic. Comes in a teeny tiny eight page pamphlet. Hella awesome.
7. “Fury MAX”, Garth Ennis & Goran Parlov
“Zero Dark Thirty” set in the Cold War starring Steranko’s superspy and The Punisher, if you don’t like this you can get out of my fucking face. The closest comparison might end up being Watchmen by the time it’s finished.
8. Fiffe’s stuff, all of it
Michel Fiffe made more legitimately great comics than anyone else this year. Keep track, that’s four: the second issue of his visionary magazine Zegas, the sucker-punch Suicide Squad fancomic Deathzone!, and two installments of the best superhero comic in half a decade, the monthly Copra.
9. “Arsene Schrauwen”, Olivier Schrauwen
The best comic of 2012. Virtuosic art matches virtuosic writing in a tragicomic opera about post-WWII colonialism in the Belgian Congo. Tons of slapstick, amazing control of every element of the comics form. Intensely moving, will make you both very happy and very sad.
10. “Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller”, Joseph Lambert
Fuck Building Stories, this is the straight dope right here. A spellbindingly told story of naked humanity and the best pure reading experience of the year. And oh my God: the drawings in this thing.
11. “Inside Moebius 6” (2009), Moebius
Goddamn, Moebius died this year. This book is a cheat on numerous fronts (it came out a few years ago, it’s in a language I can’t technically read), but I got to see it for the first time only a little while ago. The maestro went out on his best comic ever, a truly epic visual meditation on death and the possibility of an afterlife, rounded off by a robustly juvenile sense of humor. Of course it’s impossible to find, but keep an eye out for one just the same, this is an all-time great comic.
Oh yeah, and 12. I made a lot of cool comics too. I finished a graphic novel about the Iraq War, did some weird short comics, and a bunch of neat drawings. I’ve got two new zines coming out over the next month or two. Laterrrrrrr.