Let me just start this post with a minor kvetch: I hate Top Ten lists that actually have ties for some of the choices. That’s not a top ten, people. It’s a top twelve. Sorry.
That said, here’s New York Magazine’s top ten twelve graphic novels of 2007.
I’m still embarrassed to only have read two of the books on this list, and I’d probably argue with one of them. Waterbaby was good, one of the better Minx books in both art and story, but certainly not a top ten best book. Particularly on a list that doesn’t include Local. (yes, you get the point, but I’m going to keep harping on it until every single one of you owns it.) It suffered from the same problem that much of my own fiction does–great characters, but a plot that just petered out.
However, the NY mag list did remind me of just how great the Fables: The Good Prince arc was. This may have been my favorite trade of the bunch–and I love Fables. I was always a Bigby Wolf fan, but Fly’s story brought tears to my eyes, warmed my heart, and frankly, was closer to my politics than most of the Fables series. But politics be damned, great writing is great writing, and Fables has that in spades, coupled with always stellar art and the best covers in the biz.
So, thanks, New York magazine, for reminding me to go re-read that trade. And then buy the one that came out a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t have the budget for–still don’t, but I need it. Soon.
December 9th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
It may not be a top 10, but I appreciate that they’ve taken almost an entire year to debate the best of 2007.
December 9th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
It’s depressing sometimes that these lists always consist of books that I can’t sell to save my life. Outside of Fables, I stocked a few of these, and not a single one has sold.
December 10th, 2008 at 1:15 am
I have stocked a few of these and sold most of them. I have also read most of them… knowing your product…
Anyhow, with this and the other list put on Blog a couple days back, what is up with reissued material making these lists… Strange Embrace is ancient. It’s good, but hardly new.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:10 am
I’ve only read two on this list.
Slow Storm was interesting, but flawed. Novgorodoff has potential, but this particular book is not a top tenner.
Paul Goes Fishing was very well done. I can see it as a book in the back-half of the top ten.
Still waiting for the twenty-odd people who requested Bottomless Belly Button from the library before to finish so I can see what it’s all about.
December 10th, 2008 at 8:43 am
I take no issue with Local‘s omission, but that’s because I don’t consider it a graphic novel. It’s a collected edition of an episodic series. However, the above-referenced list seems to include other collections as well, so I get your opposition.
I don’t think it’s right to judge actual graphic novels and collection editions together. They’re crafted differently.
December 10th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
it’s Water Baby… two words, not one.
December 10th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
The Good Prince was a good trade.
Homelands is still the best trade of the bunch (so far), but seeing genuinely nice and compassionate characters in comics is refreshing these days.
December 12th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
This may put me in a minority among Fables fans and all, but The Good Prince is easily my least favorite arc/tpb so far. (Its immediate follow-up, War and Pieces, loses the bottom slot by virtue of the fine Boy Blue opening story and the even better Cindy two-parter, even if the war itself — perhaps unavoidably — didn’t live up to expectations). The Good Prince’s fatal flaw is Willingham’s inability to recognize that a shining, super-heroic Warrior King type is about one-millionth as interesting as a weird, awkward little janitor.
And I don’t know if Water Baby deserves to be on a Top Ten/Best of the Year list, but I’m glad to see it included on this one anyway. If only to counterbalance the plentiful online bashing of the comic book that I’ve encountered — which I very much expect reflected many readers’/reviewers’ indignation that the heroine had the gall to be both female and, instead of “good”, rather downright nasty. Actually, more than one of the Minx titles deserve hurrahs for teaching girls they don’t have to follow the rules, they can misbehave (The P.L.A.I.N. Janes started of the imprint on this very note), but perhaps none moreseo than Water Baby.
Water Baby was pretty excellent, really, and featured just about the most refreshingly “real” dialog I’ve read in a comic book in about a century.
Matthew