The Best American Comics 2007

DeI2anGeD

I've been a big fan of the Best American Series of books for a few years running, and this year they've released a hardback called Best American Comics. Before this, they've only had comics in Best American NonRequired Reading, so I was really excited when I unwrapped this one for the holidays.

Anyways, what I'm getting at is this: What did everyone else think of it?

The -vast- majority of the comics I've read so far are overthetop melodramatic art autobiography pieces about living homeless in a loft in NYC. Now, I'm not expecting to flip to page 47 and find the latest Green Lantern or anything, but god damn some of this material is wretched.

I really really like the book. The idea of the book. The dustjacket with comics all over it (and in it if you haven't checked yet). Some of the comics are really really good. So far, the best I've seen are Art Spiegelman's and Ivan Brunetti's three comics in the book (hear that? he has three. From an entire year of comics, the Best American Series decided that there weren't enough "good" comics and added three of one person spread out throughout the hardback).

Maybe it's the fault of the editors, but so far this has been really hit or miss. Because of the size of the book, I haven't read all of it yet, but if the first half is any representation of the last half then I'm going to be pretty pissed off.

SageinaRage

I have this, as well as the 2006 edition. I'm really wondering if we read the same book. While I do think it's kind of hit or miss, that's largely due to the HUGE variety of comics included. There's short comedic pieces, long histories, straightforward presentations as well as trippy strangeness. While I do think I prefer the content of 2006, 2007 is by no means bad. I've read just about all of it, and I don't even remember which one you're talking about as the living homeless in a loft in nyc.

DeI2anGeD

sophie crumb's piece after her parent's at the start is the crappy homeless one. I'm still working my way through it hoping for some really good material, but compared to other books in the best american series I just haven't found anything that really stands out yet (save for spiegelman's comic, which feels like it was added as an afterthought)