One Comic Book, One City

Wouldn't it be great if an entire city joined together to promote reading, literacy, and libraries, and to encourage the community to come together through reading and discussing a single comic book?

Maybe the city could choose a particularly wonderful comic book, such as, oh, I dunno, Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis?

In this hypothetical scenario, perhaps the mayor's office, the libraries, and hundreds of other community partners could contribute resources and organize lots of events to promote the program -- let's make it eight week's worth of discussions, storytelling, music, poetry, dance performances, writing, cartoon creation, crafts, and screenings of the movie Persepolis?

And maybe the city could create a website that include lots of resources to promote the project, with discussion questions and lists of recommended supplemental reading materials -- including one suggesting other well-regarded comic books like Jessica Abel's La Perdida, David B.'s Epileptic, Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, Ari Folman and David Polonsky's Waltz with Bashir, Fumiyo Kouno's Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, Lat's Kampung Boy, J.P. Stassen's Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, and Shaun Tan's The Arrival?

They could also provide lots of resources for teachers, including a complete curriculum, vocabulary lists, comic book terms and concepts, and -- ooh, here's a neat idea -- run a contest for all public school students to create a comic strip!

Wouldn't this be great, not just for the city, but for comic books in general?

Oh man it's happening.

Here's the website for One Book, One Philadelphia.  This year's featured selection is Satrapi's The Complete Persepolis, an autobiography of growing up in Iran during the Iranian Revolution.  The program runs from January 20 through March 17.  Here's the complete calendar.

The One Book, One Philadelphia program is a fantastic idea in itself, but the fact that the organizers decided to choose a comic book as the featured selection is an outstanding development.  For all you people out there who like comics and want to see the art form become more respected by and important to our society, this really sounds like something that we should be celebrating.  Philadelphia, I salute you.

Best Comics of 2009 Meta-List

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

[EDIT: An updated version of this list is here.]

This meta-list combines 130 different "best comics of 2009" lists, written by reviewers and critics across the internet, into a single list of the top 100 comic books of 2009.  My personal list is here.

This is a long post, so let me lay out how it is structured.  First, I'll describe the methodology used to create the list.  Second is the list.  Third, I'll give some of my thoughts about the list.  Finally, I've included links to all 130 lists that I used to create the Meta-List.

Methodology:

The purpose of this list is to sum up the critical consensus of the best comics of the year.  I gave each individual "best of 2009" list 550 points to distribute among the comics named on the list. For unranked lists, the 550 points get evenly distributed among all the books.  Thus, if a critic named ten books but didn't rank his or her choices, each book gets 55 points.  If a critic named 20 books, each book gets 27.5 points. If the list is ranked, the points get distributed according to a formula that gives more points for higher rankings and less points for lower rankings.  So, for a top 10 list, the #1 book gets 100 points, the #2 ranked gets 90, all the way down to 10 points for #10. For a top 20 list, the #1 book gets 52.4 points, the #2 gets 49.8 points, on down to 2.6 points for the #20 book.  After distributing the points, I totaled up the number of points given to each book to produce this "meta-list" of the top 100 books of the year.

I only counted lists that had five or more books; for ranked 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 such as like "Best Children's Comics" or "Best Manga"; I also did not count lists that used categories like "Best New Series" and "Best Mini-Series," because there's no way to determine how the points should be allotted.

This was based on an idea by Dick Hyacinth, and Chad Nevett devised the formula for distributing points.

Here is the Best Comics of 2009 Meta-List:

Rank	Title	Points
1	Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli	4973.04
2	Parker: The Hunter, by Darwyn Cooke	1660.87
3	George Sprott: 1894-1975, by Seth	1585.89
4	Pluto, by Naoki Urasawa	1425.23
5	A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi	1361.06
6	Monsters, by Ken Dahl	1350.18
7	Detective Comics, by Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III	1290.44
8	Stitches, by David Small	1043.35
9	Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe, by Bryan Lee O'Malley	1021.88
10	The Book of Genesis Illustrated, by Robert Crumb	953.52
11	The Photographer, by Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefevre	832.38
12	Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera	831.31
13	A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld	801.11
14	You'll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man, by Carol Tyler	769.07
15	Batman and Robin, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely	761.05
16	Chew, by John Layman and Rob Guillory	719.27
17	Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, by Al Columbia	713.6
18	Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao	662.87
19	The Mourning Star vol. 2, by Kazmir Strzepek	628.63
20	20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa	571.02
21	Driven by Lemons, by Joshua Cotter	500.67
22	The Complete Jack Survives, by Jerry Moriarty	491.95
23	I Kill Giants, by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Niimura	479.06
24	All Star Superman vol. 2, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely	468.75
25	3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man, by Matt Kindt	467.72
26	Tales Designed to Thrizzle, by Michael Kupperman	458.98
27	Wednesday Comics, by various	453.25
28	Masterpiece Comics, by R. Sikoryak	448.5
29	Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco	448.28
30	The Squirrel Machine, by Hans Rickheit	437.06
31	Far Arden, by Kevin Cannon	436.74
32	The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross	432.7
33	The Complete Essex County, by Jeff Lemire	422.69
34	Ex Machina, by Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris	382.46
35	The Muppet Show, by Roger Langridge	368.26
36	Cecil and Jordan in New York: Stories, by Gabrielle Bell	367.35
37	The Umbrella Academy vol. 2: Dallas, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba	366.28
38	The Unknown Soldier, by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli	365.34
39	Incognito, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips	361.22
40	The Eternal Smile, by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim	351.27
41	Ochre Ellipse #3, by Jonas Madden-Connor	348.35
42	The Act-I-Vate Primer, by various	347.51
43	Daredevil, by various	338.83
44	Little Nothings vol. 2, by Lewis Trondheim	335
45	Blackest Night, by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis	334.98
46	Gogo Monster, by Taiyo Matsumoto	334.11
47	Ganges #3, by Kevin Huizenga	320.63
48	Criminal, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips	319.6
49	Luba, by Gilbert Hernandez	318.9
50	Irredeemable, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause	313.34
51	Seaguy: The Slaves of Mickey Eye, by Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart	305.88
52	Oishinbo, by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki	305.27
53	The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young	298.16
54	Invincible Iron Man, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca	295.4
55	Jonah Hex, by Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, and others	291.02
56	Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, by David Peterson	288.61
57	Planetary #27, by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday	285.37
58	The Color of Earth/Water/Heaven, by Dong Hwa Kim	274.6
59	Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos Papadimitriou, Alecos Papdatos, and Annie Di Donna	274.57
60	League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Century: 1910, by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill	273.85
61	King City, by Brandon Graham	273.03
62	Amazing Spider-Man, by various	270.67
63	B.P.R.D., by Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, Guy Davis, Fabio Moon, and Gabriel Ba	270.19
64	Green Lantern, by Geoff Johns and Doug Mahnke	270
65	Phonogram: The Singles Club, by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie	265.35
66	Bodyworld, by Dash Shaw	263.35
67	The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, by various	261.94
68	Incredible Hercules, by Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente, and others	252.83
69	Prison Pit, by Johnny Ryan	252.4
70	Everybody Is Stupid Except For Me, by Peter Bagge	240.97
71	The Winter Men, by Brett Lewis and John Paul Leon	240.53
72	Northlanders, by Brian Wood and Leandro Fernandez	238.35
72	Sugarcube, by Sam Gaskin	238.35
74	Just So You Know #1, by Joey Sayers	238.34
75	The Bun Field, by Amanda Vahamaki	236.68
76	I Want You, by Lisa Hanawalt	225
77	Locas II: Maggie, Hopey, & Ray, by Jaime Hernandez	222.22
78	Sweet Tooth, by Jeff Lemire	216.47
79	Another Glorious Day at the Nothing Factory, by Eroyn Franklin	210.84
80	Adventures in Cartooning, by James Sturm, Alexis Frederick-Frost, and Andrew Arnold	210
81	Funny Misshapen Body, by Jeffrey Brown	209.54
82	The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard	206.93
83	Kramers Ergot #7, by various	206.27
84	Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, by Justin Green	203.55
85	Ball Peen Hammer, by Adam Rapp and George O'Connor	203.35
86	The Natural World, by Damien Jay	201.68
87	Popeye vol. 4: Plunder Island, by E.C. Segar	201.23
88	The John Stanley Library: Melvin the Monster, by John Stanley	201.05
89	Nine Ways to Disappear, by Lilli Carre	199.58
90	Grandville, by Bryan Talbot	190.26
91	Captain Britain and MI-13, by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk	189.79
92	PR3: James Jean Sketchbook, by James Jean	188.61
93	You Are There, by Jean-Claude Forest and Jacques Tardi	187.22
94	Alec: The Years Have Pants, by Eddie Campbell	185.98
95	Low Moon, by Jason	185.97
96	Superman: Secret Origin, by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank	185
97	Double Fine Action Comics, by Scott Campbell	183.35
97	Humbug, by Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Elder, Jack Davis, Arnold Roth, and Al Jaffee	183.35
97	Mister Wonderful, by Dan Clowes	183.35
97	OMAC: One Man Army Corps, by Jack Kirby	183.35

Notes on the Best Comics of 2009 Meta-List:

• The Heavy Hitter: David Mazzucchelli's Asterios Polyp takes first place by a large margin.  I don't think it should surprise anyone that this book was ranked first overall, but what is surprising is its complete dominance over all other books, coming in several thousand points ahead of the second-ranked book.
  
• Manga: Naoki Urasawa's Pluto (#4) and Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life (#5) are the first manga to crack the top ten of any Meta-List over the past five years (I haven't created meta-lists for any years prior to 2005) and the only manga to rank in the top twenty other than Tatsumi's Abandon the Old in Tokyo, which hit #20 on the 2006 list.  Further down the 2009 list is Urasawa's 20th Century Boys (#20), Taiyo Matsumoto's Gogo Monster (#46), Tetsu Kariya and Akria Hanasaki's Oishinbo (#52), and the manhwa trilogy The Color of Earth/The Color of Water/The Color of Heaven, by Dong Hwa Kim (#58).  This development might be a sign that manga in general is becoming more accepted among critics and reviewers (as opposed to just being popular) or it might just be that certain authors are particularly beloved (Tatsumi, Urasawa, and Matsumoto all have shown up on previous lists).
• Superheroes: DC published the only two superhero comics to break into the top 20: Greg Rucka and J.H. Williams III's Detective Comics (#7) and Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's Batman and Robin (#15).  And let's hear a round of applause for Morrison and Quitely's All Star Superman: one of the few books to show up on multiple Meta-Lists, here are its rankings from the past four years: #7 in 2006, #3 in 2007, #3 in 2008, and #24 in 2009.  A fine run for something that was only 12 issues long.
• Scott Pilgrim is Good: Another marvel of the Meta-List is Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim series.  Ranked #16 in 2005, #42 in 2006, and #5 on 2007, it shows up on this year's list at #9.  The final volume arrives this year, along with a movie adaptation.
• Top Ongoing Series: Jason Aaron and R.M. Guera's Scalped (#12) might be considered the highest-ranking ongoing comic book on the list (since Rucka and Williams' stint together on Detective Comics was fairly short and Scott Pilgrim is a finite series).  Scalped is another Meta-List perennial, showing up at #12 last year and at #76 in 2007.
• Non-Fiction: David Small's Stitches (#8) heads up quite an array of non-fiction and autobiographical work, including Emmanuel Guibert and Didier Lefevre's The Photographer (#11), Josh Neufeld's A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge (#13), Carol Tyler's You'll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man (#14), Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza (#29), Lewis Trondheim's Little Nothings (#44), Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis and others (#59), Jeffrey Brown's Funny Misshapen Body (#81), Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary (#84), Eddie Campbell's Alec: The Years Have Pants (#94), and Johnny Ryan's Prison Pit (#69).  Just kidding about Prison Pit, everyone except for Jog knows that's not real.
• Anthologies: Four anthologies show up on this year's list: Wednesday Comics, edited by Mark Chiarello (#27), The Act-I-Vate Primer (#42), The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman (#67), and Kramers Ergot #7, edited by Sammy Harkham and actually published in 2008 (but who's counting?) (#83).  This surely means something, but I just don't know what.
• Whoops? Two big projects, Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza (#29) and Campbell's Alec (#94), both arrived in the final days of 2009.  I can't help but think that their very late release dates hurt their chances at showing up in many critics' lists and thus pushed their total score down.
• The World Wide Web: Dash Shaw's Bodyworld (#66) is the only web comic on this year's list, with previous web-representative Achewood (#22 in 2007 and #28 in 2008) dropping off the list.  Bodyworld finds its way into bookstores this year. Scott Campbell's Double Fine Action Comics (#97) also is published on the web, but I believe the critics that picked it were talking about the book version published this year.
• Classic Comics: A number of collections of "classic" material show up to remind us that we are living in The Golden Age of Reprints (TM), including the previously-mentioned TOON Treasury (#67), E.C. Segar's Popeye (#87), John Stanley's Melvin the Monster (#88), Humbug (#97), by Harvey Kurtzman et al., and Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps (#97).  Throw in the reprint of Green's Binky Brown (#84) and you've got yourself quite a collection of classic work.
• Where's Marvel? Two of Marvel's top three comic books are creator-owned: Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips's Incognito (#39) and Brubaker and Phillips's Criminal (#48).  Not until Daredevil (#43) do you see a Marvel-owned property, and that too was written by Brubaker for the majority of the year.  Note to Marvel: don't fire Ed Brubaker.

This meta-list is based on the following lists:

Alert Nerd (Sarah Kuhn)

Alex Zalben

Amazon.com

Andrew Farago

Arizona Daily Wildcat (Steven Kwan)

Articulate Nerd (Patrick Markfort)

Athena Currier

Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat (Sean T. Collins)

Austin American-Statesman (Joe Gross)

Austin English

Barnes & Noble (Douglas Wolk)

Beaucoup Kevin (Kevin Church)

Bob Fingerman

Boing Boing (Cory Doctorow)

Box Brown

Brad Meltzer

Brian Garside

Cat Garza

Charlito LaGreca

Chuck Forsman

Collected Comics Library (Chris Marshall)

Comic Book Resources

Comic Book Resources (Brian Cronin)

Comic Book Resources (Timothy Callahan)

Comics Alliance

Comics Waiting Room (Marc Mason)

Comics Worth Reading (Johanna Draper Carlson)

Comics-and-More (Dave Ferraro)

Comiks Debris (Marc-Oliver Frisch)

David Press

Dean Haspiel

Drawn! (John Martz)

Drawn! (Matt Forsythe)

Dustin Harbin

Dylan Williams

Ellen Abramowitz

Exquisite Things

Forbidden Planet (Richard Bruton)

Forbidden Planet (Wim Lockefeer)

Geek to Me (Marissa Meli)

Going to New Mexico (Bram Meehan)

GraphiContent (Chad Nevett)

Greensboro News& Record (J. Brian Ewing)

Heat Vision at the Hollywood Reporter

Heeb

Heeb (Jeff Newelt)

Hypergeek (Edward Kaye)

I Love Rob Liefeld

Jackie Tam

James Bucky Carter

James Sturm

Jeff Lemire

Jeff Newelt

Jeffrey Brown

Jim Hanley's Universe (Jeffrey O. Gustafson)

Joe Keatinge

Jog the Blog (Joe McCulloch)

John Isaacson

John Kerschbaum

John Porcellino

Johnny Bacardi

Jonas Madden-Connor

Joseph Remnant

Josh Neufeld

Joshua Cotter

Julia Wertz

Junk

Ken Dahl

Kid Beowulf (Alexis E. Fajardo)

Largehearted Boy (David Gutowski)

Lilli Carre

List2day

MadInkBeard (Derik Badman)

Mania (Chad Derdowski)

Mechanistic Moth

Michel Fiffe

Mike Garley

Minty Lewis

Montreal Gazette (Ian McGillis)

Neil Kleid

Never Not A Nerd (Dillon St. Jean)

New York Magazine (Dan Kois)

New York Times (George Gene Gustines)

Newsarama (J. Caleb Mozzocco)

Newsarama (Michael C. Lorah)

NPR (Glen Weldon)

Patrick Willems

Paul Buhle

Peter Gutierrez

Politics and Prose

PopSyndicate (Jason Urbanciz)

Publisher's Weekly

Re:Generator Magazine

Robin McConnell

Robot 6 (Brigid Alverson)

Robot 6 (JK Parkin)

Robot 6 (Kevin Melrose)

Robot 6 (Michael May)

Robot 6 (Tim O'Shea)

Robot 6 (Tom Bondurant)

San Francisco Chronicle (John McMurtrie)

Sarah Morean

Seth Kushner

Shaenon Garrity

Shazhmmm . . . (Garrett Martin)

Shazhmmm . . . (Hillary Brown)

Susie Cagle

Suvudu (Dallas Middaugh)

The Coast

The Cultural Gutter (Carol Borden)

The Daily Cross Hatch (Brian Heater)

The Flick Cast (Sal Loria)

The Great God Pan Is Dead (Robert Boyd)

The Inkwell Bookstore

The Lightning's Bad But At Least It's Not Loud (Dan Morris)

The Oklahoman #2 (Matthew Price)

The Oklahoman (Matthew Price)

The Oregonian (Steve Duin)

The Skeleton Without Bones

This Ship Is Totally Sinking (Tucker Stone)

Thomas Baehr

Those We Left Behind

Tom Neely

Tony Isabella

Trosper and Ignatz Meet Gentle Giant (Diana Green)

Trouble with Comics (Christopher Allen)

Trouble with Comics (Marc Sobel)

USA Today Pop Candy (Whitney Matheson)

Village Voice (R.C. Baker)

Wednesday's Haul (Scott Cederlund)

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

Best Comics of 2009

Here are my favorite comics that were published in 2009.

10. Britten and Brülightly, by Hannah Berry

Wonderful art and a neat noir mystery.  Here's my review.

9. Stitches, by David Small

A memoir of an unhappy childhood. This was very difficult to read. Here's my review.

8. Driven by Lemons, by Joshua Cotter

This replica of Cotter's sketchbook is unlike anything I've ever read. It's as if he spent every school year doodling until every doodle was perfect and immensely complex.

7. Ganges #3, by Kevin Huizenga

Ganges #2 was on my list last year, and while I liked that one better, this one was still great.  Huizenga's comics are just really enjoyable to read. The full page image of Glenn inside his own head is really something else.

6. Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao

Smart, funny, and fun, starring a couple of total sweethearts. Great action scenes, too.

5. Batman and Robin, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely

I loved a lot of things about Morrison and Quitely's three-issue run: the way Robin seemed to float in the air in all of the action scenes, the sound effects drawn into the art, those weird bad guys that are both laughable and dangerous. I also loved that the two people underneath the masks -- Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne's son Damian -- had flaws, and those flaws led to dramatic conflict, and that conflict drove the story. And the big bad, Professor Pig, was extra creepy.

4. Gogo Monster, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Matsumoto nails the daydreams and anxieties of childhood like nobody else.

3. Richard Stark's Parker: The Hunter, by Darwyn Cooke

So damn stylish. Here's my review.

2. Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli

Mazzucchelli puts every tool in the comics medium to good use. There is a lot going on here, but at bottom he's just telling a love story about how two people complete each other.

1. Pluto, by Naoki Urasawa

This series has everything: fascinating characters, a suspenseful and dramatic plot, awesome action, terrifying and complex bad guys, important themes, and outstanding art. Every chapter amazes me. Here's my review of the first volume.

Honorable Mentions:

I had fun reading lots of other comics that were published this year, too, including Matt Furie's Boy's Club #3, Lucy Knisley's Pretty Little Book, Simon Roy's Jan's Atomic Heart, Kate Beaton's Hark a Vagrant, Jacques Tardi's West Coast Blues, Joe Daly's The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book, Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon's Sugarshock, Peter Milligan's two Thor specials, and that John Romita Jr.-drawn Doctor Octopus story in Amazing Spider-Man #600.

Related: My favorite comics of 2008.

Brandom Graham's talking about King City and Multiple Warheads

Brandon Graham, creator of the oh-so-fantastic King City and Multiple Warheads, is answering questions for the next five days at Warren Ellis's Whitechapel forums.

Already, Graham has been asked whether he will continue King City after the first twelve issues and whether it might be collected.  His answer:

As far as King city-- the rights are a co-tied up mess. so I'm not sure if and when I'll be back to it after the 12 issues. I do have some future stuff based in the same world---like what's happening in china at the same time.  because of the rights hullabaloo while Image is publishing the issues Tokyopop gets to decide what to do with the collection.  I assume they will do something with it in the future. there's a french box set coming out too--fancy.

And as for what projects we will be seeing this year:

Mostly this year is King city issues and then around november I'll start putting out my color Russian werewolf book Multiple warheads.

 So go follow along in the discussion here.

Dear Ship's Log

Scott Campbell is great.  He just posted a funny three-page comic here.

Vintage Cartoon Ad Database

This database of vintage cartoon ads and vintage comic book ads is worth checking out.