Except this year, it’s only a good thing. The Best American Comics 2014 (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014) is a masterful collection of where the medium of comics is right now. If you need a primer, this is it. If you just want to have all these amazing comics in one volume you can take with you, this is it. This has set the standard for what all the following The Best American Comics books need to be.

Under the guidance of new series editor Bill Kartalopoulos (who, among many other things he does, always puts together incredible programming for Small Press Expo), it does feel like the direction of what these books should be has changed. While I have no problem with what former series editors Matt Madden and Jessica Abel were doing, Kartalopoulos brings a curator’s eye to this collection, seeking out the new and the different, and wanting to highlight new creators alongside the legends. It all goes into a wonderful pool to choose from.

This year’s editor is Scott McCloud, and his background as a comics creator, teacher and thinker shows through. He is obviously excited about comics all the time and his enthusiasm shows through. He organizes the comics here into categories and provides context for each section. It gives the volume a structure and flow that has been lacking in previous ones. Even as much as I know about comics (and many of these creators), I found this to be insightful and informative.

Yes, you’ll still find most of the usual suspects here — the book starts selections from Jaime Hernandez, Charles Burns, Adrian Tomine and R. Crumb — but that’s dispensed with quickly (and wisely). Other than an extended look at Chris Ware’s Building Stories, the rest of the collection is full more recent legends and unknown creators — from Raina Telgmeier (it’s a delight to see Drama highlighted here) to Michael DeForge to Sam Alden (whose gorgeous Hawaii 1997 is included here).

Even crossover favorites like Brian K. Vaughan’s and Fiona Staple’s Saga and Brandon Graham’s Multiple Warheads get nods here. Instead of coming across as “I too like popular comics” on the part of McCloud, it feels more like “These are really great comics and I wanted to share them!”

Did anything surprise me here? I certainly loved that Allie Brosh’s “Depression Part II” is put with all these great comics because it deserves to be there. It’s fun to see an excerpt from Lale Westvind’s Hyperspeed to Nowhere #2 and selections from Richard Thompson’s Cul de Sac in this book, too. I appreciate that McCloud didn’t shy away from including more experimental comics from Aidan Koch and Erin Curry.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve read most or none of these comics before. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking to discover new creators or just want to enjoy some old favorites. Whether you know nothing about comics or that’s all you read, The Best American Comics 2014 is for you.

Review copy provided by publisher.

Briefly noted:

I’m still going through my stack of comics from Small Press Expo (and the comics I bought afterward), but I just wanted to highlight a few I’ve read lately and have enjoyed.

• Weird Me Vol. 1 by Kelly Phillips – Phillips tells her tale of her days managing a Weird Al fansite. It’s hilarious and sweet. Her art carries a good sense of setting and emotion and her page layouts are dynamic. I am looking forward to Vol. 2 way too much (in fact, after finishing this, I immediately went online to ask when it was going to be done.)
• The Secret of Angel Food Cake by Hannah Lee Stockdale – I have read this comic way too many times and after I failed to see her at SPX, she kindly sent me the print version. There is just something so lovely and quiet about the storytelling. And I like the way Stockdale draws dogs. If you draw good dogs, I like your comics.
• Hair by Matt Lubchansky – This minicomic is basically just a punchline you can guess from the beginning, but it’s still a good one. Lubchansky’s comic is funny and playful — characters are all wide-eyes and exaggerated movements — and things that could be horrifying just come across as silly. Also, great use of spot color.

Editor Russ Kick managed to find time during his current tour in support of the book to answer a few questions via email.

Comicsgirl: For those unfamiliar with The Graphic Canon, what do you want to say to introduce them to the concept?

Russ Kick: I asked 150 comics artists and illustrators to adapt the great works of literature from all ages. I asked them to stay true to the source material, but artistically they were given free reign — any style, any approach, any medium.

CG: I’m always interested in projects that may attract non-comics readers. Was that one of your intentions with this project?

RK: Definitely. I see The Graphic Canon operating on many levels and in many directions. I think it will draw non-comics readers to comics and non-literature readers to literature. From a purely artistic standpoint, I hope the sheer creativity and power of the adaptations and illustrations will go a little way toward propelling the art form in new directions. On the literary side, it contains some unusual choices, so it may spark some debate there regarding what belongs in the canon of great lit. But beyond all those agendas, I wanted it to be a powerful, self-contained experience.

CG: I love the diversity of both the works of literature adapted and the styles of art. How much of that was a goal and how much of that just happened?

RK: Diversity was definitely a goal from the beginning, and I did what I could to make it happen, but the exact ways that it happened came down to chance and synchronicity. I purposely approached amazing artists whose approaches and styles are all over the map (and sometimes off the map). Once in a while they had a work of literature in mind already, but most of the time I offered specific suggestions or a large “wish list.”

CG: What was the most surprising part of working on The Graphic Canon?

RK: Every time an artist emailed me final art, it was like Christmas. Pretty much each time I opened a newly arrived adaptation, I was amazed all over again at the level of energy they all brought to the project.

CG: After The Graphic Canon, do you have any other comic-related projects in mind?

RK: Yes! There will be further volumes of The Graphic Canon, and I’m also wanting to compile multi-artist anthologies of newly conceived mystical and religious art of various kinds. I’m also trying to figure out how to create unthemed collections that exist to show the astounding amount of sequential/illustrative talent out there.

Russ Kick will be signing copies of The Graphic Canon Vol. 1 at Big Planet Comics‘ Bethesda location (4849 Cordell Ave.) from 1 to 3 p.m. on June 2.

The Genius of R. Crumb’s The Book Genesis Illustrated

My earliest memory of R. Crumb formed when I was in the eighth grade. “Keep on Truckin’ “ was the motto that set the stage for my teenage years.

I don’t remember why, but I even made a small figurine out of papier-mâché, painted it and put a little tie on him. I still have the little guy!

But, other than his early one-page cartoon and his poignant work, “A Short History of America,” R. Crumb’s artwork strikes me as too obscene and leering for me to be a fan.

I’m not particularly a fan of the Book of Genesis, either, I found it one of the more tedious books of the Bible when I read the Old Testament many years ago. It’s got its high points – The Creation, Noah and the Flood, and the Story of Joseph – but all the begats and stories that don’t seem to have a point can put the reader in scan mode.

Still, R. Crumb and the Book of Genesis turns out to be a brilliant pairing of which I am a fan. With his assurance that he is faithful to the text, I felt free to let the characters tell about life thousands of years ago. Each frame of Crumb’s drawings are dense with his signature crosshatching, rich detail, and real sense of time and place. The people are humans in motion, full of life and expression.

This is not to say that The Book of Genesis Illustrated is solemn or reverent. Crumb may have intended a straightforward telling, but the very style of his artwork colors the events with humor and satire. God is a man with a great flowing beard, all the women are round and voluptuous, and each hero has dumbfounded look on his face when life gets tough. And it gets tough a lot in Genesis.

No detail is spared in the illustration, from hairdos and clothing to flocks of sheep and terrain. Crumb takes the time to draw a portrait of all the sons of everyone, which gives us something to look at while all the begats and lists of descendants go on and on.

What I came to realize is how perfect Crumb’s artwork is suited to the text. With stories filled with incest, deceit, sex, love, murder, jealousy and greed, his lusty, brazen mode of drawing brings flesh and blood to the events. He takes every opportunity to draw bare-breasted women, couples engaging in sex, and acts of violence. It is doubly shocking, for example, when two daughters, for lack of men, get their own father drunk and have sex with him.

Moments of raw emotion are present, too, as when Abraham keens over this dead wife, Sarah, or when Rachel finally gives birth, and when Joseph weeps into the neck of the younger brother he thought he’d never see again.

If the narrative seems hard to understand at times, spending extra time studying the frames adds insight. It also helps to turn to Crumb’s commentary at the end of the book, which sheds additional light on this ancient time in history.

As much fun as The Book of Genesis Illustrated is, I look forward to Crumb’s interpretation of other books of the Old Testament. Imagine what he could do with the characters Moses, David, Daniel, Ruth, and Esther.

I’ll bet he’s working on it now. Keep on Truckin’, Robert.

Tracy Miller is a designer and writer. Check out her work at Tracy Miller Designs.

I’ve felt a little critical of The Best American Comics in the past, and that could just be that I wasn’t that familiar with them, but I’ve always felt they had a somewhat limited perspective on literary comics. You were going to find the approved creators — you know, the kinds of people who create “graphic novels” and those that your non-comics friends would possibly read, but not much else.

And then I read Neil Gaiman was the guest editor for the 2010 edition. Yes, I kind of rolled my eyes at bit there. I like Gaiman as a writer, yes, and his contributions to comics have been notable, but they’ve mostly been in the past and his work is fairly mainstream (maybe not initially, but I think once he’s showing up on CBS Sunday Morning, yes, he’s mainstream). He wouldn’t have been my first pick to put together a book of the best comics of the year.

However, Best American Comics 2010 is pretty cool and I think a lot of that is because of Gaiman’s perspective. I think since he’s not as closely connected to comics as someone else would’ve been, he’s more open-minded in his selections. The stories being told are what’s important here — not who is made them.

Yes, you have a lot of the usual suspects (too much Chris Ware for my tastes, but then, I’m not really a Ware fan), but you also have Theo Ellsworth, Bryan Lee O’Malley, C. Tyler, Lilli Carre. In other words, you have a lot of my people. It’s a wonderful mix of high-profile releases, like R. Crumb’s The Book of Genesis and Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel’s The Alcoholic and smaller releases, like Jesse Reklaw‘s Slow Wave and Fred Chao‘s Johnny Hiro.

That’s awesome. That’s what comics is. It covers a broad range of styles and subjects. It encompasses creators and publishers of all ages, experiences and fame. This didn’t feel like “Oh, here’s a bunch of creators you’ve probably heard of and one guy who got a Xeric.” It felt more like “This is what was great in comics between Aug. 2008 and Sept. 2009.” I loved seeing a lot of the comics I loved in that time period showing up here.

Is the perspective still a little limited? Maybe. But overall, this ended up feeling a lot like a collection of comics I’ve read or would read.

So yes, it’s still not for me, since I’ve read a lot of these comics (and I bet you have to). But would I give it to a friend or family member who was interested in comics but didn’t know where to start? Absolutely. That’s what this book is designed to do and it does it incredibly well.

Advanced reading copy provided by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt through NetGalley.