Best Comics of 2008 Meta-List

2005 Meta-List | 2006 Meta-List | 2007 Meta-List
2008 Meta-List | 2009 Meta-List

This meta-list of the top 100 comic books of 2008 is compiled from over a hundred "best comics of 2008" lists from critics across the internet.

This is based on an idea and a lot of work by Dick Hyacinth. Dick published a meta-list of the best comics of 2007 and was working on a 2008 meta-list when he stopped blogging. Fortunately, Dick had published links to the 2008 lists. I went through every list, compiled everything into one spreadsheet, and then quantified the data to produce this meta-list. Thanks to Dick for his part in this project.

Methodology: I gave each critic 550 points. Critics who wrote unnumbered lists distributed their points evenly among the books on their lists, while critics with numbered lists distributed their points according to a formula created by Chad Nevett. I only counted lists that had five or more books; for numbered lists with more than 20 books, I only counted the top 20. I also only counted general "best of" lists, not lists limited to a certain genre or type of comic book.

I'll post more analysis and information about the meta-list in a future post, but for now, here is the Best Comics of 2008 Meta-List:

Rank	Points	Title
1	2356	Bottomless Belly Button, by Dash Shaw
2	1511	Acme Novelty Library #19, by Chris Ware
3	1266	All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
4	1181	Too Cool To Be Forgotten, by Alex Robinson
5	1112	What It Is, by Lynda Barry
6	1086	Ganges #2, by Kevin Huizenga
7	988	The Alcoholic, by Jonathan Ames and Dean Haspiel
8	981	Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Joshua Cotter
9	876	Kramers Ergot 7, by various
10	803	Capacity, by Theo Ellsworth
11	769	Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell
12	767	Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera
13	766	Omega: The Unknown, by Jonathan Lethem, Karl Rusnak, and Farel Dalrymple
14	730	Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
15	662	Three Shadows, by Cyril Pedrosa
16	634	Travel, by Yuichi Yokoyama
17	575	Love and Rockets: New Stories #1, by Jaimie Hernandez and Gilbert Hernandez
18	573	Gus & His Gang, by Chris Blain
19	504	Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!, by Art Spiegelman
20	488	Burma Chronicles, by Guy Delisle
21	474	Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
22	471	Local, by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly
23	465	Freddie and Me, by Mike Dawson
24	461	Good-Bye, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
25	453	Essex County Vol. 3: The Country Nurse, by Jeff Lemire
26	422	Jin and Jam #1, by Helen Jo
27	418	Tamara Drewe, by Posy Simmonds
28	412	Achewood, by Chris Onstad
29	397	The Education of Hopey Glass, by Jaime Hernandez
30	381	Echo, by Terry Moore
31	368	The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard, by Eddie Campbell
32	367	Alan's War, by Emmanuel Guibert
33	359	The Lagoon, by Lilli Carre
34	354	Casanova, by Matt Fraction and Fabio Moon
35	339	Joker, by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo
36	338	Berlin: City of Smoke, by Jason Lutes
37	317	Willie and Joe: The WWII Years, by Bill Mauldin
38	308	Powr Mastrs vol. 2, by C.F.
39	304	The Umbrella Academy vol. 1, by Gerard Way and Gabiel Ba
40	303	Slow Storm, by Danica Novgorodoff
41	297	BodyWorld, by Dash Shaw
42	275	Fluffy, by Simone Lia
43	273	RASL, by Jeff Smith
44	270	MOME, various
45	267	Black Jack, by Osamu Tezuka
46	264	Complete Little Orphan Annie vol. 1, by Harold Gray
47	257	Sammy the Mouse #2, by Zak Sally
48	255	Fight or Run, by Kevin Huizenga
49 (tie)	243	Blue Pills, by Fredrik Peeters
49 (tie)	243	Abandoned Cars, by Tim Lane
51	242	Little Nothings, by Lewis Trondheim
52 (tie)	238	Ochre Ellipse #2, by Jonas Madden-Conner
52 (tie)	238	Madman Atomic Comics, by Mike Allred
52 (tie)	238	Monster Men Bureiko Lullaby, by Takashi Nemoto
55	234	Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliati
56	232	Goddess of War, by Lauren R. Weinstein
57	229	Bat-Manga!, by Jiro Kuwata
58	226	Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker
59	225	Inkweed, by Chris Wright
60	223	Monster, by Naoki Urasawa
61	221	Boy's Club #2, by Matt Furie
62 (tie)	220	Army @ Love, by Rick Veitch
62 (tie)	220	Curio Cabinet, by John Brodowski
62 (tie)	220	Empire Park, by Jason Shiga
62 (tie)	220	P.S. Comics #4, by Minty Lewis
66	217	Disappearance Diary, by Hideo Azuma
67	213	Popeye vol. 3: Let's You and Him Fight!, by E.C. Segar
68	212	American Flagg!, by Howard Chaykin
69	211	Captain America, by Ed Brubaker, Steve Epting, and Luke Ross
70	210	Jamilti and Other Stories, by Rutu Modan
71	205	The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard
72 (tie)	202	B.P.R.D., by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and Guy Davis
72 (tie)	202	Lucky vol. 2 #2, by Gabrielle Bell
74	197	My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down, by David Heatley
75	196	An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories vol. 2, by various
76	195	Wormdye, by Eamon Espey
77	191	Glamourpuss, by Dave Sim
78	188	Fables, by Bill Willingham and Mark Buckingham
79	185	Gary Panter, by Gary Panter
80 (tie)	183	Blue Beetle #25, by John Rogers and Raphael Albuquerque
80 (tie)	183	Far Arden, by Kevin Cannon
80 (tie)	183	Fishtown, by Kevin Colden
80 (tie)	183	Interiorae #3, by Gabriella Giandelli
80 (tie)	183	Petey and Pussy, by John Kerschbaum
80 (tie)	183	Welcome to the Dahl House, by Ken Dahl
86	180	Tokyo Zombie, by Yusaku Hanakuma
87	165	How to Be Everywhere, by Warren Craghead
88	162	Solanin, by Inio Asano
89	157	Angry Youth Comix #14, by Johnny Ryan
90	156	Northlanders, by Brian Wood and Davide Gianfelice
91	155	Mesmo Delivery, by Rafael Grampa
92	152	Speak of the Devil, by Gilbert Hernandez
93 (tie)	147	Cat Eyed Boy, by Kazuo Umezu
93 (tie)	147	Don't Cry for Me, I'm Already Dead, by Rebecca Sugar
93 (tie)	147	Dungeon, by Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar
93 (tie)	147	Judenhaas, by Dave Sim
93 (tie)	147	Only Skin #3, by Sean Ford
93 (tie)	147	Deitch's Pictorama, by Kim Deitch, Seth Deitch, and Simon Deitch
93 (tie)	147	Heavy Liquid, by Paul Pope
93 (tie)	147	Y: The Last Man, by Bryan K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Other "Best Comics of the Year" Meta-Lists:
2005 Meta-List | 2006 Meta-List | 2007 Meta-List
2008 Meta-List | 2009 Meta-List

Where have you gone, Aron Wiesenfeld?

There is a good chance that you have never heard of Aron Wiesenfeld. Let's fix that.

In 1993, Wiesenfeld gets his first work as a comic book artist for Continuity Comics. He then moves to Marvel and does the pencils for one of the two stories in 1993's X-Men Annual #2 and two issues of Cable from early 1994. Here's a page from that Annual:

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It's nothing special: standard Marvel house style, with some anatomy issues. Somebody at Image sees something there, though, and he is hired to do the pencils for the four-issue mini-series Team 7.

Team 7 is written by Chuck Dixon, and it unearths some of the history behind many of the characters in what would later become the Wildstorm universe. It is one of my favorite Image comic books at the time, but it never becomes a hit on the level of Youngblood, Spawn, or any of the original Image books.

Here's the first page:

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Again, fairly standard 90's Image look, especially since approximately four hundred of their books opened with a shot of dudes parachuting out of a plane. Still, Wiesenfeld pulls it off with some gusto and energy.

Here's a page from the second issue:

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Nothing too fantastic, but I think you can see that Wiesenfeld is getting more confident. Now here's a double-page spread from further on in the mini-series:

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I hope some of you are starting to get excited. I know when I saw this for the first time I thought, "Whoah. This guy is good!"

And that third issue is solid work all around. Here are a neat two pages that show off Wiesenfeld's ability to make the action feel nice and big:

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And hey, here's another one. A full page of Deathblow shoving a guy's face into the wall:

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There's some nice detail work in there.

It's good work. I think if something like this was being produced at Marvel or DC today, it would be well-received.

After that, Wiesenfeld does some pin-ups and covers for more Image books, but his next major work is in the short-lived anthology Wildstorm!

Here's where things get more interesting, I think. Wiesenfeld writes and draws a two-part, black-and-white story where Deathblow encounters a big warrior. Here's an example of the work:

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So yeah, Wiesenfeld's got some terrific drafting skills by this point. But in this comic, he starts to play around with storytelling. There are a lot of wordless panels showcasing the action, like these:

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From this moment on, I am not only buying anything he does, but I am actively hunting down his comics. Very few people in mainstream comic books at this time are turning out work like that.

In 1996 and 1997, he writes and draws another two-part story. This time, Deathblow gets to hang around with Wolverine.

And as with Team 7 and Wildstorm!, Wiesenfeld's work takes another huge leap forward. Here are the first two pages of Deathblow and Wolverine:

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HOLY MOLY! LOOK AT THAT DETAIL! It's Geoff Darrow-esque. And beautiful.

Now answer this hypothetical: two pages that look like this are published by Marvel today. Does the comic blogging universe go apesh*t? I say yes.

And those two pages aren't a fluke. Wiesenfeld keeps it up through the whole book. Here's a throwaway panel from one scene -- check out the background:

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Also note, more wordless storytelling.

But this isn't just Wiesenfeld-does-Darrow. It is also Wiesenfeld-does-Frank Miller-circa-Elektra Lives Again. Here are two fantastic pages:

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So now it's 1997. Wiesenfeld is clearly at the top of his game, but nothing he is working on is really breaking out. (At least, that's the sense I got. I haven't checked the sales data.) So what does he do?

He leaves comics. Goes to art school. Becomes a painter. Graduates in 2000.

He's not gone for good, though. Not yet.

In 2001, he returns with a short back-up story in Batman: Gotham Knights #17. It's written by Joe Casey. I think you might notice a slight difference in Wiesenfeld's art:

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What? That change in style is about as jarring as a knife in the chin. But still, something special, I think.

After that, Wiesenfeld does the pencils for the first two issues of the 2002 Image series Guardian Angel. Here's one page from the first issue:

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Wiesenfeld does strong work here, but he isn't given much chance to show off -- the book is pretty terribly written, and it ends after those first two issues. It never quite gets going.

For the rest of 2002, Wiesenfeld produces covers for the Vertigo series The Crusades. In 2003, he does a cover for Fables. In 2004, he does five covers for Y: The Last Man. They look like this:

But after July 2004's Y: The Last Man #22, Wiesenfeld disappears.

Poof. He's gone. Like Keyzer Soze. He hasn't worked in comics since.

So where is he now? It's not too hard to find him. Just head to his website: http://www.aronwiesenfeld.com/

It's for his painting career, his fine art. It looks like those Y: The Last Man covers, or that short story from Gotham Knights. But if you only knew Wiesenfeld from his pre-2000 work, you'd never know it was the same artist.

You can't find much about Wiesenfeld in the comic book internet. It's almost as if he was never here. There is one blog post about the use of panel borders that talks about some of his work, though. It states that "Aron Wiesenfeld was one of Image Comics only great finds, but for whatever reason he never found himself drawing Bendis comics for Marvel or Flash covers for DC, and this lack of recognition in commercial art apparently forced him to take a giant step backward into the world of fine art."

So that's where he is, now. Fine art. It looks like he's got a solid career as a painter. Solo exhibitions, even. I wish him luck in that career.

But the comic book world is poorer without him here.

Short Reviews: Jan's Atomic Heart; West Coast Blues; Refresh, Refresh; and Give It Up!

Here are four quick reviews of comic books that I read recently:

1) Jan's Atomic Heart, by Simon Roy, 2009, New Reliable Press, 56 pages, $5.95

Tucker Stone's review alerted me to the existence of this book, and I went to SPX on the lookout for it. It's about a guy in the future whose consciousness has been placed in a robot body while his real body recovers from a car accident. Unfortunately for him, the robot body has some hidden problems. It's a fun, fast read, and Roy's art is great. He does an excellent job creating an beat-up near-future, and his story is engaging and has an interesting mood to it. I'm looking forward to his next project.

Here are the first twenty-two pages of the book. Here is an interview with Roy on the Inkstuds podcast and another interview at Comic Book Resources (it also has a long excerpt).

You can buy it from New Reliable Press or from Heavy Ink.


2) West Coast Blues, by Jacques Tardi, adapted from the novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, 2009, Fantagraphics, 80 pages, $18.99

This French noir comic is about two hitmen targeting an average shmoe. He's married with kids and a boring job, spending his vacation at a crowded beach, and all of a sudden two dudes in Speedos are trying to drown him. There's some good humor, like the hitmen's inability to find their mark as he wanders around Paris, and some grisly violence. It's nothing revolutionary; just a well-crafted piece of genre entertainment. I dug it.

Here is a ten-page excerpt, and here's Jog's review of the book.

You can buy it from from Fantagraphics or from Amazon here: West Coast Blues

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.

3) Refresh, Refresh, by Danica Novgorodoff, adapted from the screenplay by James Ponsoldt, based on the short story by Benjamin Percy, 2009, First Second, 144 pages, $17.99

I didn't read Novgorodoff's first graphic novel, Slow Storm, which was apparently about a firefighter and an illegal immigrant in a small town in Kentucky dealing with a tornado's impact. This one is about three boys in a small town in Oregon dealing with their fathers leaving to fight in Iraq. It's a solid story, and Novgorodoff's straightforward art is a good fit. One particularly interesting character is the local armed forces recruiter, a young vet who also has to deliver the news to the town's families when their loved ones have died in Iraq. That's some serious internal conflict right there. My only issue with the book was that it was a little predictable. I mean, it's about three boys hoping to hear from their fathers, and being forced to grow up too quickly while they wait for the dads to return. What do you think is going to happen? Other than that, it's good.

Here is an eleven-page excerpt. Here is an interview with Novgorodoff about the book.

You can buy it from the publisher or from Amazon here: Refresh, Refresh

Disclaimer: This review is based on a complimentary copy provided by the publisher.


4) Give It Up! and other short stories by Franz Kafka, by Peter Kuper, 1995, NBM, 64 pages, $15.95

A friend from work lent me this after I mentioned that I liked comics; it's very interesting to consider that something like this might be this person's only exposure to comics. Anyway, Peter Kuper adapts a bunch of short stories by the fun-loving Franz Kafka, and lots of yuks result. Just kidding, lots of powerless people are beaten down by society, government, and other powerful people. I mean, look at that cover (taken from an interior image). That's a cop with a gun barrel nose, telling our lost protagonist that no, he won't give him directions. Yikes. Kuper obviously loves the source material (he later adapted Kafka's The Metamorphosis) and his style is perfect for it. The art and tone of the book kind of reminded me of Art Spiegelman's Prisoner on the Hell Planet, by the way. This originally came out in 1995, but it looks like NBM recently republished it in softcover.

Here is a four-page excerpt and here's another excerpt.

You can buy it from NBM or from Amazon here: Give It Up! and other short stories by Franz Kafka

Disclaimer: Fantagraphics sent me a copy of West Coast Blues, and First Second sent me a copy of Refresh, Refresh.