Peter Bagge is the greatest. I mean, literally, who’s better? Dan Clowes is a better drawer but dude has gone off on too many weird tangents recently and we need laughs. Charles Burns and the Hernandez Bros. can fucking draw but can anyone follow what the fuck they’re talking about? Robert Crumb can draw better than anyone and he’s funny. OK, yeah, Robert Crumb is the greatest, but last we heard he was drawing every fucking page of the bible so we’ll get back to him in a thousand years and give him the title back. Matt, Seth and Chester Brown are a joy to read but do they really give us the cartoon punch Bagge delivers? Does anyone’s eyes ever bug out? No. They don’t. Adrian Tomine is awesome and you have to give it to him as the only Asian in the history of Asia to admit the dick size thing is an issue but he’s more a realist story teller than a traditional cartoon man. David Heatley can’t draw. I don’t care if he got fucked by his dad. And yeah, we love mini-comics types like Ron Rege, Jon Porcellino, Gabrielle Bell and Vanessa Davis but they have few reams of paper to use up before they’re in Bagge’s league. Okay?
Oh yeah, Art Spieglman is up there with the top five but, I don’t know, who can compete with the consistent greatness that was Hate Comics? Or the Reason series he does?
APOCALYPSE NERD by Peter Bagge
Dark Horse Books
Apocalypse Nerd is The Road but in cartoon and with nerds. It’s as great as you expected it to be.
THE BEST AMERICAN COMICS 2007 edited by Chris Ware
Houghton Mifflin
Everyone we listed in the opening paragraphs is here. Not sure why everyone loves David Heatley so much but whatevs.
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STREET BONER 1127
Being straight edge as a kid is a great way to rebel against: puking, getting pregnant, and wrapping your parent’s car around a tree.
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What ever happened to Sunday Funnies?
05.19.08 at 11:24 am
I think you also forgot to mention Johnny Ryan, Ivan Brunetti, and to a lesser extent Evan Dorkin.
05.20.08 at 4:06 pm
Julie Duchet “Dirty Plot” was awesome back then too. I met Dan Clowes at a comic convention in like 90 and he signed my copy of 8 Ball and dated it 1964. Buddy Bradley’s roommate Stinky was fucking hilarious. Don’t get me started. daz76.wordpress.com
10.18.08 at 1:57 am
I meant Dirty Plotte (French-Canadian slang- go figure it out)
10.18.08 at 1:58 am