The Best American Comics 2010

<p><P><i>The Best American Comics</i> showcases the work of both established and up-and-coming contributors. Editor Neil Gaiman&#8212;one of the top writers in modern comics and the award-winning author of&#160;novels&#160;and children&#8217;s books<i>&#8212;</i>has culled the&#160;best stories from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the&#160;Internet to create this cutting-edge collection. With entries from luminaries such as Tim Hensley, Michael Kupperman, and Dash Shaw, &#8220;it&#8217;s hard to flip through this book without finding a lot worth reading (and rereading)&#8221; (<i>The Onion, A.V. Club</i>).</p><h3>Publishers Weekly</h3><p>This yearly anthology is always something to look forward to, with its impressive editors, juicy forewords, and superabundance of comics genius between its two covers. Series editors Jessica Abel and Matt Madden start off with a brief history of the burst in comics' popularity and readership over the past decade; luckily for us, they include an extensive list of "Notable Comics" that didn't make the final cut. Gaiman, in turn, agonizes entertainingly over the accuracy of the title Best American Comics and finally suggests that the volume instead be called A Sampler&#58; Some Really Good Comics, Including Extracts from Longer Stories We Thought Could Stand on Their Own. It's a wealth of fine storytelling&#58; extracts from Lagoon, the gorgeously strange fairy tale by Lili Carr&eacute;; Carol Tyler's great You'll Never Know; Bryan Lee O'Malley's Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe; and Fred Chao's Johnny Hiro. Some stand-alone gems include Todd Brower and Steve MacIsaac's "Ex Communication," in which two bearish men meet for a drink and chat uncomfortably about what they've been up to since their split; Peter Kuper's two-page takedown of the Bush legacy in "Ceci n'est pas un comic"; and Gabrielle Bell's "Mixed Up Files." A thrilling and varied journey from start to finish. (Oct.)</p>