The Best American Comics 2006.

[starlady]

The Best American Comics 2006. Ed. Harvey Pekar. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Somehow I got this gorgeous book for only $3. In the spirit of sharing, I gave it to my friend K, because she will get better use of it. But I read it cover-to-cover before I gave it to her, and it's pretty awesome.

I really liked series editor Annie Elizabeth Moore's preface; she follows Scott McCloud in defining comics as an art form combining words and pictures in sequence, intended for mechanical reproduction (obligatory wave to Walter Benjamin goes here). She also writes that,

In fact, comics defy literature: they openly refuse to obey its rules, entirely recreating what we know of language. Yet the sheer range of storytelling forms explored and presented in this volume defiantly mimic what we accept as literature anyway. […] And if that is what we can agree is meant by "written work"–that it can be read–then this collection's merit as literature will stand on its own.

And, in fact, it does.

Since the 2006 volume (the first in the series) collects material published in 2005, which is…five years ago now, the volume necessarily is very much of that particular depressing cultural moment. There are comics here dealing with the war in Iraq, the Republican convention in New York City in 2004 ([opinion on that cynical gesture redacted]), the advent of gay marriage and the execution of a death-row inmate. One of the absolute standouts, "Nakedness and Power" by Seth Tobocman, Terisa Turner, and Leigh Brownhill, chronicles the struggles of rural Nigerian women and their allies for economic justice, political representation, and peace, over the last 20 years. Theirs is a cautionary but ultimately an inspiring tale.

I also really liked Jesse Reklaw's "Thirteen Cats of My Childhood," which chronicles his family's slow-motion disintegration via the cats they kept. Family dysfunction is a theme in these works; R. Crumb's "Walkin' The Streets" had me literally crying with appalled laughter. Ben Katchor's "Goner Pillow Company" was obscurely touching; I also really liked Rebecca Dart's "Rabbit-Head", which has to be the most visually innovative piece in the book. Another common theme is the deconstruction of superheroes, whether they be Joel Priddy's Onion Jack, Gilbert Shelton's Wonder Wart-Hog, or Lilli Carré's Paul Bunyan. Lynda Barry's "Two Questions" is a brilliant mediation on creativity, and Chris Ware's "Comics: A History" is priceless.

A lot of these comics are laugh-outloud funny, but the humor is very sharp-edged. I wonder whether that's a consequence of the time or just of cartoonists being a jaded, cynical bunch with unhappy childhoods (to take their comics as biographical truth), or whether this is how alternative comics these days defines itself against manga and Marvel + DC. Something of all three? In any case, I'd love to read the newer entries in the series (and I live in hope that they'll have more women represented).

Comments

[starlady]

See, I don't think quoting Kafka automatically excludes someone from SFF. Undoubtedly Miéville has written books that flirt with other genres (The City & the City being Exhibit A), but his books are still shelved in the SFF section at the local big box--and with good reason, I think.

I do think there is a bias in literary fiction towards male authors in general and white male authors in particular--Foster Wallace, John Updike, Phillip Roth, Don DeLillo, Lethem, Chabon, also David Mitchell, whose books I love to death, to pick names not quite at random. The cream of the genre, if you listen to its proponents and apologists, definitely fit a certain pattern. I think there's also a secondary level to litfic which tends to be written by mostly white women--the sort of thing, to stereotype broadly, that sells well and gets a lot of play on the book club circuit, but never quite seems to earn the top prizes (Alice Sebold, Ann Packer, etc). There are important exceptions to these trends, unquestionably (Zadie Smith, Rushdie, Colson Whitehead), but publishing is still a pretty white place. Which isn't to disagree with your point about awesomeness not being a function of an author's race or class or whatever.

I do think litfic is a genre, too. It's a genre that insists that it's not a genre, and that furthermore it's the only genre with literary merit, but a genre nonetheless.

[seekingferret]

If we're positing that the white male authors you submit ostensibly sit at the top of the genre according to its proponents, and I don't disagree with those names on the whole, which of those authors is nasty, vicious, or depressing?

Foster Wallace, Chabon, DeLillo, Lethem, surely not. Roth and Updike can write depressing books, but are certainly not limited to depressing books, and I've found that even their saddest stuff reaches moments of sublime humor. The best writers of literary fiction are masters of humanistic writing.

As to what you called the secondary tier of litfic, the stuff which I would say is written FOR white women more than it's necessarily BY white women- plenty of white men also write it- I suppose that's where the depressing tag on litfic comes from. I mostly don't read those books, but I've read enough to know that some of it is worth reading and most of it probably isn't. But that's just Sturgeon's Law.

I don't intend to exclude Mieville from SFF, but then, I've always included Philip Dick on both my list of Post-Modernists and my list of SF writers, so clearly I'm not very good at this genre thing.

[starlady]

Maybe a better term is realistic fiction.

I've not read any of DFW's fiction (yet). As for DeLillo, to pick on him because I've read the most books of his, White Noise is great, but Underworld is just long and ultimately boring, I think. I liked The Plot Against America, but I have little patience for Roth and Updike and their phallo-centrism, as DFW himself diagnosed it. In some ways it's not the content of the books (they do have their moments of humour) so much as the worldview. I look at Rabbit's life and I'm just like, Shoot me if that's really all there is to it.

"Humanistic" there is a key word--I don't really see myself fitting terribly well into the definition of the humanist subject, or at least, I'm not convinced that it's better to continue to insist that the humanist subject can include everyone instead of just writing books about non-humanist subjects.

I think in some ways the idea of genres is more trouble than it's worth, but it's also a convenient way of organizing arguments, if nothing else.

[seekingferret]

To be fair, Rabbit looks at his life and goes "Shoot me if that's all there is to it."

[starlady]

And then I say, "Why the hell did I just waste these hours of my life reading about your life if you hate your life!?" LOL

ETA: You know, it might just be easier to show you an example of my reactions to genre boundaries and litfic versus SFF: http://starlady.dreamwidth.org/272280.html

[seekingferret]

My read on the Rabbit books is that Rabbit is the beneficiary of monstrous privilege, Rabbit is aware that he's the beneficiary of monstrous privilege, Updike is aware that he is the beneficiary of monstrous privilege, and the book is an exploration of what it means to be so privileged that you can literally get away with murder. I think we read the Rabbit books for the same reason we read Crime and Punishment, that is to say. I think Raskolnikov and Rabbit are of a type, demonic figures who nonetheless possess a charm or something else unnameable that makes them compelling. I haven't finished the series, though.

[starlady]

I'm still stuck halfway through C&P. The Brothers K is pretty damn amazing, though. ^^