The List

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I was recently asked to nominate my choices for the hundred greatest comics of the twentieth century by the Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada in Amadora, Portugal. After much delay, beginning with a detour into some really bad comics, I finished my list today.

The first thing you'll notice is that there are far fewer than a hundred comics. As I'm unqualified to judge comics outside the Anglophone tradition on any sort of historical merit, I felt I couldn't and shouldn't provide a hundred choices supposedly representative of the best comics from around the world. I could have listed a few personal favorites from the non-Anglophone comics, or trotted out all the usual names one hears cited as the greatest, but the former seemed myopic and the latter tautological, if not dishonest. I instead limited the list to the traditions I do know, selecting three dozen or so that I'm confident deserve their place among the world's best.

I have a few other comments, but let's save those until later. First, the list:

Carl Barks, Uncle Scrooge

Milt Caniff, Terry and the Pirates

Eddie Campbell, Alec: How to Be an Artist

Jack Cole, Plastic Man

R. Crumb, et al, Zap Comics

Will Eisner, The Spirit
Will Eisner, To the Heart of the Storm

I wanted to include an Eisner graphic novel, as he's done some terrific work, but the selection was difficult. For all that A Contract With God is called "the first graphic novel," a) it's not the first, and b) it's not really a graphic novel, so much as a collection of short stories. (Graphic novellas?) Rather than choose that on the basis of some spurious primacy or influence, I nominated To the Heart of the Storm, Eisner's fictionalized autobiography and family history. Dropsie Avenue is also good.

Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, Love and Rockets

Separate this one into its most successful storylines and collected editions ("Duck Feet," The Death of Speedy, "Human Diastrophism," Love and Rockets X, Poison River, Chester Square), or nominate the whole thing? I obviously chose the latter.

George Herriman, Krazy Kat

Jack Jackson, Los Tejanos

Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, Doctor Strange
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Fantastic Four

Frank King, Gasoline Alley

Jack Kirby, The New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People

Harvey Kurtzman, et al, Frontline Combat
Harvey Kurtzman, et al, Two-Fisted Tales
Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, et al, MAD

Winsor McCay, Little Nemo in Slumberland

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics

Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, From Hell
Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, The Birth Caul
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Watchmen
Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben, Saga of the Swamp Thing
Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta

Grant Morrison and Richard Case, Doom Patrol
Grant Morrison and Chas Truog, Animal Man

Morrison was very nearly represented by a third title, The Invisibles, but as much as I love that series, its later issues were marred by highly inconsistent writing (and occasionally inconsistent art). The first volume and the first half of the second volume would earn a place here, though.

Joe Sacco, Palestine
Joe Sacco, Safe Area Gorazde

Charles Schulz, Peanuts

Art Spiegelman, Maus
Art Spiegelman, Francoise Mouly, et al, RAW

Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library

Bill Waterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Looking back over this list, its most striking feature is that some figures, one figure in particular, seem rather overrepresented. Five Alan Moore comics looks like a lot, although it's only a tiny (and highly selective) fraction of his output. I think this is a function of the creators' relative modes of production. Writers like Moore and writer-editors like Lee or Kurtzman are free to work on more titles and more projects than the many writer/artists here; Frank King spent fifty years on one strip.

The two names most difficult to include were Crumb and Schulz. I'm well aware of the influence both have exerted - and my list was already light (although, I think, not without reason) on the newspapers and the undergrounds - but I care little for their work. Also, in Schulz's case I'm not sure the influence was a positive one, as we owe the newspapers' current gag-a-day drought to the minimalist, shrinkable, interchangeable style Schulz perfected. I caved nonetheless.

Not so with the autobiographists or the crafters of "nongenre" fiction so celebrated over the past decade; I could have named a few on the basis of being the best of their subgenre, but I wasn't going to include anyone just for inclusion's sake (other than Ware, Campbell, and Eisner, each a slightly unusual case and each here entirely on their own merits). Ditto today's minimalist scenesters, many of whom would not have made the twentieth-century cutoff anyway.

The number and quality of recent works suggests that the medium is in good shape, even if its direct market is not. The twenty-first century has already produced at least one work that I would without hesitation place on any "Best of" list: Eddie Campbell's After the Snooter. I wonder if Moore and J. H. Williams III's Promethea might also belong there once its done (just to further unbalance things).

Like all lists, naturally, this is better taken as a gauge of my tastes and my reading than as any absolute indicator of quality. As I've said before, list-making is not a scholarly enterprise, distinct even from the increasingly suspect (but still occasionally useful) business of canon formation. That a conference would solicit such a list of comics, the way the AFI or Random House assembled their lists of films and novels, is a sign of the popularity and respectability that comics enjoy in Europe; if the CNBDI's project might promote such popularity and respectability here in America, then it's worth doing.

Comments

[matthew rossi]

I take it you're not a fan of Pogo?

[David Fiore]

That's a very diplomatic and balanced list Marc! As a person who is incapable of being either (in print, I mean!), I salute you!

But no Filth? As you indicate, there's room for a third Morrison title, and the problems with The Invisibles are not present in this most recent effort. What did you think of the book, anyway?

Dave

[Josh Lukin]

Wrong century, Dave. Gotta be Flex Mentallo in the third Morrison slot.

[David Fiore]

That's right, time has marched on hasn't it?
I forgot about that! I still haven't read Flex--I know this situation must be remedied!

Dave

[Peli Grietzer]

No Sandman?

Not that I think it's an obvious or vital choice. But as problematic and clumsy as Gaiman is with langauge, and for all the work's flaws and it's current unjustified place in the (semi) mainstream as the ultimate "comics as high art", I think it's clear the the ten volumes together create something truely grand, poetic and powerful. And even if many of the individual storylines are a bit "middlebrow" in the bad sense, many others are artistic gems.

[Greg Morrow]

I'm with Rossi.

Walt Kelly's Pogo deserves a high ranking.

[Marc]

Dave - Balanced? I think not!

Loved The Filth, but it's solidly in the twenty-first century. I do need to reread it sometime; by the end of the series I began to feel the many twists and revelations were canceling each other out (particularly the stunning revelation of the penultimate issue, which I couldn't reconcile with the final one). It certainly benefits from the consistent, superb Weston and Erskine art.

Josh - I completely forgot about Flex Mentallo, a worthy third. Although I probably forgot about it because it's rather short in comparison to most of the works I listed, save Alec and The Birth Caul.

By the way, I enjoyed your TCJ article on Morrison from waaaaayyyy back in the day, and even made use of it for a conference paper. Have you written anything else on Morrison?

Peli - No Sandman. I can, with effort, look past the rambling, vastly overrated storylines, the superficial adoption of Moore's style, the moronic cosmology and the insistent preciousness that taints everything Gaiman. The series did reinvent the way long-run comics can be structured in America, popularizing a number of structural innovations: finality, distinct story arcs, flashback issues, etc. Much of what I like about The Invisibles is made possible by Sandman, loathe though I am to admit it. And there are a few gems; I particularly liked the first couple of "Distant Mirrors" stories, and Orpheus in the French Revolution was probably the series' artistic height.

But a few gems don't make one of the greatest comics of the twentieth century. I suspect that over the long run, Sandman will be remembered as a decently-written bestseller with a couple of neat tricks that occasionally mitigate the unbearable pretension.

[Marc]

Pogo may routinely be included on such lists, but I decided reputation alone would not be sufficient reason to include anything on mine.

Looking at my bookshelf (to remind myself why I didn't care for Pogo) I spotted another comic that should have made my list - Martin Rowson's brilliant adaptation of The Wasteland as a film noir starring Robert Mitchum. Wonder if it's too late to add on...

[Jess Nevins]

! Marc, I could kiss you for mentioning Rowson's Wasteland. I've yet to meet anyone else who's seen this.

[Michael Chary]

While I don't find anything wrong with the list, per se. I doid notice what I feel are glaring ommissions based on historical importance and quality. "Pogo" has already been mentioned, but also missing are "Doonesbury," the single most important strip of the last 40 years even counting Peanuts' heyday in the 1970's, and Dilbert which has captured the zeitgeist of American corporate culture in a way not seen since Dave Berg's work in Mad Magazine.
Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, of course, has transcended comics as few other characters have.

Along those lines, Seigel/Shuster's Superman clearly merits consideration on both quality and historical importance, as does Finger/Kane's Batman and Binder/Beck's Captain Marvel.

Finally, Moore's next slot should go to Jaspers Warp. Morrison's to Zenith, and Priest should get a slot for Quantum and Woody. :)

[Peli Greitzer]

" Martin Rowson's brilliant adaptation of The Wasteland as a film noir starring Robert Mitchum"

Are we taling about The Wasteland as in "April is the cruelest..."? If so, can you please expand?
That sounds really exciting.

And the thing with Gaiman is I feel all his works are shadows of what they were supposed to be. Maybe it's just my sentiments for it as the first comics I read, but from my expirience there is something curious about the sandmans status: It's mostly praised eitheer by very middlebrow long-time comics readrs, but also by many general readers with vast literary background and fine taste. When I re-read it today it's really not as good as the first time, but I feel it's partly because I don't read it the same way now that I'm more used to comics, not just because it lost value. But I can't put my finger on it, really.

However, what I think comes as proof the Gaiman really has a great treasure of ill-directed talent within him is his Andy Warhol Miracle-Man story, which is simply superb.

[Marc]

Mike - I considered most of the names you mentioned, but the call was for a list of the greatest - historical importance was only one consideration for me, and it usually took a back seat to quality.

I thought about including Siegel/Shuster and Kane/Finger, but while they did build a genre, they didn't produce truly great comics; their art was particularly deficient. Even the Lee/Ditko Spider-Man was ultimately adjudged too much of a mess to make the cut, which I will follow Craig Fischer in blaming on Ayn Rand.

Binder/Beck Captain Marvel is much better, but it's still just a very good genre comic, no more or less "great" than the very good autobiographies or very good writer's-workshop-fiction-in-comic-form that I wasn't inclined to include. Hell, I'd say it's better than most of those, but I wasn't including anything purely as a genre representative.

The newspaper adventure strips posed a problem, and both Raymond and Hal Foster were considered. I decided I didn't know enough about either to include them - again, I was not going to fall into the tautology of citing the traditionally-accepted "greats" just because their greatness is traditionally accepted - and what little I did know caused me to wonder if they were better anatomists and illustrators than they were narrative storytellers. Also, Flash Gordon has transcended the comics in exactly the manner numerous other characters have, only far less so, and in any case that has nothing to do with the quality of the comic - otherwise fucking Garfield would be here and I would have to go out and shoot myself.

Trudeau is very smart and very funny, but even he would say "Doonesbury" succeeds in spite of his drawing, not because of it. Negative influence was a factor here, too: that The Boondocks can get away with Sunday strips - Sunday strips! - showing three panels of tiny heads under giant word balloons may be laid partially at Trudeau's feet. (Bucking this trend is what earned Watterson a spot on my honor roll, btw.)

The one name you mention that didn't occur to me, that I would frankly deny belongs on any list of great comics, is "Dilbert." Sure, it's funny, but funniness isn't greatness, and Scott Adams's art makes Aaron Magruder look like the second coming of Winsor McCay. There's also something strangely listless about his humor: capturing corporate culture is not the same thing as critiquing it, and good satirists, as Trudeau and Magruder demonstrate, have a point of view.

Peli - I have more thoughts on Gaiman, mostly agreement, but those may have to wait for a post of their own.

Jess - You don't have to kiss me.

[Jeff R.]

I actually almost find the absence of Miller, Wagner, and Sim more significant than the lack of Gaiman. Less so for Sim; you're going for complete works and Cerebus as a whole is too deeply flawed. (and not complete inside the century) Jaka's Story might qualify if one was willing to break it up, though (and you did break up the greater work of Alec...). No Dark Knight or Sin City (The original story), no The Hero Discovered?

Strip-wise, I'd say that the omission of Larson's Far Side rankles more than Dilbert or Doonesbury , although the dubious comics-ness of single-framers may figure into this.

[Mike Chary]

I thought about Far Side, but Marc disqualified it by including Understanding Comics, which disqualifies all single panels. I actually got on McCloud's case about that once...

I'm not going to to try to further defend any of my "glaring ommission" candidates, just because, what's the point? I will say I think the political edge to the early Superman books is sometimes unjustiably ignored. Oh, and I think Dilbert does have a clear point of view. (And just to defend my fellow Hoosier, back when Garfield was about a cat and not some little guy in a catsuit, it was a brilliantly funny strip.)

Marc, you considered Quantum and Woody?

[Marc]

No, but I figured the smiley meant you were kidding. :)

Miller is a puzzling absence, isn't he? (Sim is not. I sat on my fingers throughout the quasi-love-fest this past spring in eager anticipation of the day when nobody pays attention to Dave Sim anymore and the Comics Journal doesn't feel obligated to print his 15,000 word screeds.) While he's done some great genre work - Daredevil would be my choice, probably "Born Again" - I felt being exemplary of a genre wasn't enough. Also, frankly, I already had plenty of good (better) superhero comics - that probably weighed against him, and I don't think his non-superhero work measures up as well.

I don't want to turn this into defending the list against all challengers. The list was never meant to be exhaustive (hence my nomination of 35 comics where 100 were called for) and anyway, I think what's on the list is more interesting than what's not on it.

But less controversial, I'm sure, and therein the discussion lies.

Let me suggest a different angle: what qualifies something as "great"? Instead of just dropping names that we all somehow recognize as great - the one qualifier I absolutely rejected - what does Dark Knight Returns or Pogo have that should make them one of the greats?

[Greg Morrow]

Pogo:

Hilarious farce, brilliant wordplay, excellent political satire, clear and insightful point of view; innovative lettering; extraordinary linework.

[Mike Chary]

DKR:

Doing something new with a character who had already had a million or so "new" takes. See also Englehart/Rogers.

[Jeff R.]

Dark Knight
The character work is not really special enough to qualify it, on its own. The accomplishment of Miller's that ought to stand out here, though, is in developing a new visual vocabulary for comics, with some very innovative work in pacing through layout (after the years of balanced 2x3 layouts preceeding it, Miller's grids and splashes were something new. [Sure, maybe Eisner had done similar things before, but the fact that other people had used clever wordplay and transitions before Moore doesn't disqualify him from the list.

Miller (with Varley) also was the most competent among the first to really explore the use of color in comics after the technological advances that took the medium beyond 4-colored tiny dots, in DKR and also in Ronin.

[Greg Morrow]

See http://www.moviepoopshoot.com/comics101/28.html for a thorough examination of Pogo.

[Michael G. Switzer]

Uh, CLOWES!
EIGHTBALL!
maybe "Caricature"
or "Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron"
or, yes, even "Ghost World"...
CLOWES!!!

The Lone Nut

[Grotesqueticle]

Everybody,

Pogo:

Hilarious farce, brilliant wordplay, excellent political satire, clear and insightful point of view; innovative lettering; extraordinary linework.

Posted by: Greg Morrow

You are exactly right about all that. The man put more thought into the freaking word balloons than 98% of all cartoonists have put into entire panels.

Marc, as long as you are listing the rest of Kirbys "New World" mythos, why not include his stint on "Jimmy Olsen"? On the basis of absolutely no evidence whatsoever (because I am new to your blog and too lazy to read many past entries) I suspect you are of an age, like myself, that these comics just wowed you as they came out. This, despite the fact, that Kirby was past his prime as an artist and storyteller. Yet he still created some of the most interesting IMO characters extant in the DC Universe to this day.

Peli, I agree with you completely as far as "I think it's clear the ten volumes together create something truly grand, poetic and powerful" goes. I think the one thing Gaiman lacked was consistent good art. Let's face it, a majority of those stories had bottom tier pencilling.

For my money Moores TOP 10 is the best superhero comic I've ever read.

On strips, What about BLOOM COUNTY? Breathed was consistently funny on a daily basis for a solid 7 year period or so. Great draftsmanship and belly laugh payoffs every freaking day.

I would have to include Sims whole HIGH SOCIETY thru CHURCH & STATE run in any list of best comics, no matter how short. Hell, I'd throw in the run up through GUYS into that statement.

Preacher - for all it's simplistic philosophy and Uber real-world Violence - was sheer storytelling lunacy at it's most enjoyable. I couldn't wait to get each issue in my grubby palms. Major props to Ennis/Dillon.

Carl Banks will always be the man. Period.

And did anyone else really dig the first three years of ULTIMATE SPIDERMAN or was it just me?

Here I sit, in the depths of a Guinness binge, laughing like an idiot watching South Park, so what is my opinion worth?

[Marc]

Mike - Miller and Englehart both did wonderful things with Batman, and if the list were "100 great Batman stories" they would both be at the very top. But, like Jeff, I don't think character work equates to greatness in the medium.

Jeff - good point about the grids and the coloring, certainly worthy of the highest honors. I think my problem with DKR is that I can't separate the art from the writing, and the writing doesn't grip me as much as it once did. Miller probably should be on the list, though.

Michael - Why Clowes? I mean, I'm well aware that he's routinely cited as a comics genius, but hearing one more citation doesn't really change my opinion of his arid work: unremarkable character-based "nongenre" fiction, distinguished only because its genre, highly respected in literary circles, was at one point fairly uncommon in comics. But it's not great or remarkable writing in and of itself.

Clowes's work also seems to be susceptible to a problem that has undermined many an alternative comic. He can't escape the superhero comics he so disdains because he never stops telling us how much he disdains them; nor are his criticisms particularly novel. (Superheroes are sexually dysfunctional? Superhero publishers are hucksters? Really.)

But maybe I'm missing something. So, reputation aside, why Clowes?

[David Fiore]

Jeff R.

I don't think Miller's DKR layouts were really all that innovative. Colan, Simonson, Neal Adams, hell Jack Kirby! had all done a lot of experimenting with panel layouts and pacing (Miller has always seemed to me like Simonson without the sense of humour...)

Dave

[Peli Grietzer]

I think I'm starting to get a grasp of the nature of this list- I think marc doesn't intend to do a list about works that shaped comics as much as about works whose existence is a proof of the medium's worth.

I'm all for it. But I think it's interesting to think of that decision in the context of a medium still fighting for its credibility.
I think a list about a more established art-form would have tended to be more interested in works whose value lies in their evolutionary role, and works which represent the peak of genre-writing.
I really do like it better this way, though.

[Marc]

Actually, I don't see the list as being about proving the medium's worth, I just see a major qualitative difference between "important" and "great"; while many of my choices are both formative and high quality (Lee/Kirby, Eisner, etc), being formative alone wasn't enough. After all, I doubt Famous Funnies deserves to be on anybody's list of "great" comics.

I also see a difference between "exemplary" and "great"; the most exemplary Batman comics or "naturalistic" fiction comics (to use a descriptor I don't particularly like) may be fine specimens of their genre, but that doesn't mean they're going to be among the all-time greats. (It doesn't disqualify them either, something that too often rules out good popular genre works.) Recent (post-Miller and Moore) superhero comics in particular fall into a trap of being exclusively about genre, limiting their potential scope.

Since the list was proposed by a conference in a country that does afford comics more credibility, and since it's polling people from all over the world, it should be interesting to see if the final result does take on a more evolutionary or exemplary cast; I don't doubt that some people, perhaps many people, will have formed their lists that way. I also don't doubt that a couple of tautologies will work their way onto the list. However, I think it's actually more defensive to build a list that way; being confident of the medium's quality, I felt free to focus on what I consider the best, not the most historically important.

Greg - I followed the link and I have to say I still don't get it. First of all, I didn't think that was a thorough examination so much as a thorough summary.

Secondly, and I'm just going to lay all my cards on the table here, I've always been highly suspicious of the great respect accorded Pogo - the implicit argument too often seems to be, "See, this must be important because it's got political commentary," an argument that rarely considers the quality of the commentary. Or, for that matter, the quality of the comic - instead Pogo is usually dignified by its content, a formulation I absolutely reject.