Dear Washington Post,
Including “DC Comics: the New 52″ in your list of “Top 10 Graphic Novels and Comics of 2012” makes you look stupid and/or disingenuous. It seems like you said to yourself, “Ooh, the fanboys are going to complain about all these highbrow, literary, and even journalistic books we’ve selected. Let’s be sure to throw them a bone, too.”
Which is actually fine. I understand the need to be able to say you have Covered the Field Adequately — and it’s a sure thing that action/adventure stories, and specifically superhero action/adventure stories, are an important part of the commercial comics scene.
There are choices you could have made that would have looked less lazy, that would have demonstrated a far greater understanding of the field and a stronger editorial viewpoint. As it is, it looks like you very carefully and diligently selected most of these books, then Googled to find out what the most-hyped thing that happened to happen in commercial comics was in 2012, and wrote that down.
There are plenty of superhero and/or genre adventure comics you could have picked that are good. It’s not that. It’s that you selected a marketing gimmick rather than a work of art. If you’re really committed to this New 52 thing, you could have narrowed in one one particular New 52 item that you thought was particularly good. I’ve heard the relaunch of Batman by Scott Snyder is brilliant, for example. But you didn’t do any of that.
“The New 52″ is not a graphic novel. It is not even a comic. Choosing it is like saying that “The New Deal” was your favorite President, or “Season 2″ was your favorite comedian on Saturday Night Live. There’s no sense to be made of it.
This is probably good, though, and I hadn’t heard of it, though I should have. So thanks for that.
Most of the other 9 items are interesting, and some of them I hadn’t heard of before now. The “Pearls Before Swine” collection, though it’s probably good, also looks like an example of tokenism (“D’oh! We’ve got to include at least one newspaper strip to make it seem like we understand the whole field!”) But at least it is a discrete item of artistic effort, and a critically acclaimed one at that — and not a corporate marketing gimmick.
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It’s the collected edition of all 52 #1s.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dc-comics-various/1112938572?cm_mmc=googlepla-_-book-_-q000000633-_-9781401234515&cm_mmca2=pla&ean=9781401234515&r=1
First off – Pearls Before Swine is great. Sure, it might be on there in order to fill a “Best of Newspaper” spot on the list, but I don’t think that discounts its place on the list.
Secondly – while The New 52 collection certainly doesn’t stand alone as any sort of singularity, it’s still a graphic novel as far as this list seems to define them. The Pearls collection is just a year’s worth of daily strips; Drawn Together and The Art of Daniel Clowes are collections of a career’s work. These other three books don’t serve as a singular story either.
Now, that’s not to say that the others don’t deserve to be there either. And they’re certainly more focused than the odd 52-issue collection. That’s also not to say that the New 52 book is the best of this year’s superhero offerings, because it’s certainly not in my opinion. The book does serve a purpose – it’s a huge introduction to everything DC, and it accomplishes that. I wouldn’t personally buy it, as it’s an overly think anthology of 52 stories that continue elsewhere.
It might not be a good choice – and it’s almost definitely a lazy one – but to say that it’s not a comic is way off.
We mostly agree except on semantics.
I’d argue that it’s a marketing brochure containing excerpts of other comics, not a work of art in and of itself (therefore not a comic). When I was a kid, the TV networks would run a special every Fall previewing their new series. Imagine that marketing special winning an award as the best television show.
But yeah, semantics. I can see how the fact that it exists as a discrete purchasable book technically qualifies it. But we all agree that that was not a good choice. Don’t we?
I think it’s a very strange choice, but to call it “not a comic” doesn’t make any sense; it’s like saying that the 1970s Dollar Comic version of ADVENTURE COMICS wasn’t a comic because it had multiple continuing features in it. Or, heck, ACTION COMICS #1, for having four “stories” in it that were simply the opening chapter, with no resolution.
You can actually make a better argument against THE ART OF DANIEL CLOWES being a comic, because it’s an art book. But I think what they’re really listing is comics-related packages (BUILDING STORIES isn’t a book, either, but it’s comics) that they find worthy of note.
I’m willing to back down on the “not a comic” language. I still maintain that if you’re only going to have one example of commercial action/adventure/superhero comics in your list, a collection of first issues of a commercial publisher’s entire line, even though it happens to be presented in single-book form, is a stupid, lazy, disingenous choice!
I’m also willing to be all comic-book-guy angry about “The Art of Dan Clowes” being not-a-comic! I didn’t even catch that (in part because I am, like the Washington Post, lazy, though I hope I’m not stupid or disingenuous too).
A lot of that probably has to do with the serial nature of superhero books. Almost any volume of a cape book from Marvel or DC is part of a larger whole, and makes it tough for putting on a list like this. For instance, I love Hickman’s Fantastic Four, and it would easily be at the top of my “Top 10 Comics of 2012″ list; but it’s a different case for a “Graphic Novel” list, which – as you said – should be more about a singularity. That’s not to say there aren’t superhero books that would apply to from the past year, but they are few and far between.
Again, that’s not to say that New 52 is a good choice, but I can understand why it’s here. The New 52 was a big deal, and this book captures that idea. It’s not something I’d spend $150 on or recommend to anyone, but different strokes, I suppose. If they’re going to shoehorn a superhero book, they might as well go all the way, and that’s what they did.
And really, it’s a shame that superhero books are so often overlooked on lists like these. THAT should be the real issue!