The Best American Comics 2013

The Best American Comics 2013

The Best American Comics showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Jeff Smith—creater of the classic comic  Bone, a comedy/adventure about three lost cousins from Boneville—has culled the best stories from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and web comics to create this cutting-edge collection. As Smith (Bone, 2004) notes in his introduction, we’re living in a new golden age of comics, when there is more available “in terms of art, imagination, format, and opportunities” than ever before, and there isn’t a better example of this than the Best American Comics series. The 2013 volume follows the series pattern (perhaps worth reexamining) of eschewing more mainstream comics and plumbing the far reaches of independent comics, where individuality is more apparent. Although bigger names, such as Alison Bechdel and Craig Thompson, appear (mainly in excerpts that are refreshingly more inviting than frustrating), much of the volume’s energy and life comes from lesser-known entries, such as Sam Alden’s silent but thrilling “Turn Back” (from The Haunter); Derf Backderf’s chillingly banal “The Strange Boy” (from My Friend Dahmer, 2012); Eleanor Davis’ emotional, dystopian “Nita Goes Home”; and Michael Kupperman’s hilarious “Scary Bathtub Stories.” Fans of the genre will find a surprise or two, but this is the ideal book to hand to a comics neophyte with mature tastes who is ready to be astounded. --Jesse Karp “In front of you awaits wit, style, danger, curiosity, philosophy, metaphysical visions, love, angst, sex, betrayal, and cutting-edge ocular techniques all folded into this thing—this experience—we call comics.” — Jeff Smith, from the Introduction Featuring Derf Backderf, Kate Beaton, Alison Bechdel, Gabrielle Bell, Eleanor Davis, James Kochalka, Terry Moore, Tony Puryear, Craig Thompson, and others JEFF SMITH is the self-published author/cartoonist of the BONE graphic novels, which have won numerous awards around the world, including multiple Eisners and Harveys and the French Alph-Art Award. In 2005, Smith’s work was chosen to launch Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Books. In 2009, he was the subject of an Emmy Award–winning documentary called The Cartoonist: Jeff Smith, BONE, and the Changing Face of Comics. Smith’s current self-published project is the noir, sci-fi tale of a dimension-hopping art thief called RASL. JESSICA ABEL is the author of the graphic novel La Perdida, as well as two collections of stories from her series Artbabe. MATT MADDEN is a cartoonist best known for his book 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style. Together they are the authors of Mastering Comics, the follow-up volume to their popular comics textbook Drawing Words and Writing Pictures.