Valleys and Troughs

AV club: best comics of the aughts.

The Onion's AV Club released today their list of the best comics of the past decade, and for the most part they've done a pretty decent job. Achewood, without qualification the best webcomic that will ever be written, heads the list (which is arranged alphabetically, but we like to think Achewood would top it out regardless). Other notables include Charles Burns' Black Hole, Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman (though we firmly believe Morrison's oft-maligned Batman run to be far superior to this) and Brian K. Vaughan's sprawling Y: The Last Man. We were also glad to see Ed Brubaker's Criminal series make the cut. There are some lesser-knowns in here, even to us: we have yet to read Norwegian cartoonist Jason's (last name disused) Why are you doing this? but will do so with all appropriate haste. Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead was mercifully omitted, though not because of any editorial misgivings: it was "reluctantly" left out due to space constraints (we, enormous fans of comics and zombies, simply can't understand how this thing is so successful. But we digress). Anyhow - it's a decent homage to some of the better works of graphic literature produced in the past ten years, and if you happen to be looking for some good comics to read - as you should be, at all times - this isn't a bad place to start.

VALLEY

Elementary, My Dear Wild Thing.

McSweeney's recently held a "style your wild thing" contest, in which participants dressed up their fur-covered editions of Dave Eggers' The Wild Things, his novel (which we haven't yet read but will, and soon) based on Maurice Sendak's book, which we've all heard a lot about, more than likely. There were two winning entries, including the above, and a runner-up, though it's not entirely clear what they won other than notoriety. Which, of course, is hardly to be scoffed at, and in fact should be celebrated, envied even... bastards. We jest and congratulate both the winners and McSweeney's.

VALLEY