Today’s look back at personal highlights from the last year comes courtesy of our own Continental Correspondent, the man who eats croissants shaped like Tintin’s quiff for breakfast, the Ephemerist‘s Wim Lockefeer, who selects some of the best graphic novels he’s enjoyed reading in the last twelve months, so without further pre-amble, over to Wim:
The best graphic novels I read this year (some may be older than 2007, but I just didn’t get around to them until now, so I’m including them)
Aaron Renier’s Spiral-bound – I read this during the summer and it reminded me of the endless summers I used to have as a kid, playing in the fields around our house without a care in the world. Renier is a fantastic poetic cartoonist, on a par with Craig Thompson and James Kochalka.
Glister by Andi Watson – the two issues that I read so far about Glister Butterworth and her supernatural pals only confirmed my suspicion that Andi Watson is in fact a co-operative of ghosts! Nobody can keep up being this good for such a long time! And his new style is amazing – much more fluent and vivid than earlier. (you can read a recent Propaganda review of Glister by Richard on the blog here – Joe)
Bardin Le Superr̩aliste by Max РI think this is the closest you can get to a natural high while only reading a book (although a glass of wine helped). Also, one of the very few really surrealist comics around
My Boy by Olivier Schrauwen – the adventures of a father and his tiny, ugly son, in a style reminiscent of McCay, Herriman and Segar, as if time has stood still. After reading this book, you start to wonder whether time hadn’t better stood still after all.
Kiki De Montparnasse by Catel and Bocquet – the biography of the Madonna of her time: Kiki, celebrated nightclub singer, actress and model to Man Ray, Picasso and other luminaries (as well as a painter in her own right); the perfect companion to Nick Bertozzi’s The Salon (which I also liked a lot).
Laika by Nick Abadzis – of all the things I read in this year celebrating 50 years of the space programme, this is the best by far, as it tells the story of the little people who made miracles happen. At the same time, it is able to combine this theme with another, no less poignant one: that of the inhumane use of animals for testing purposes
Fri, Dec 14, 2007
Best of the Year 2007, Comics and cartoons, From our Continental Correspondent