I am Kyle's self-indulgence

This has been a great decade for comics. The much-hyped maturation of comics in the mid-1980s resulted not in greater sophistication, but greater violence and sexuality with the same juvenile stories throughout most of the 1990s. But after that, gradually, things shifted. Perhaps it's because new writers and artists emerged who grew up on Frank Miller and Alan Moore or because the comics audience itself was growing older and more mature, but suddenly mainstream comics stopped sucking. The stories got more interesting, the dialogue was more realistic, and characters' body proportions actually began to resemble something at least approximating normal human anatomy.

On the indie side of things there has been improvement as well. Independent comics have always been the place to look for innovation and fresh ideas, but in the age of the Internet they have gained much more exposure and influence over the mainstream, with many talented writers and artists crossing over to both worlds.

Out of this environment came a number of great works that rank not just among the best of the decade, but the best of the modern comics era. Here are my ten favorites.

10. The World's Greatest Super-heroes by Paul Dini and Alex Ross
This is a slipcased hardcover collection of short stories, first published individually in an oversized format, written by Paul Dini and illustrated by Alex Ross. I think Ross's style of painting, both realistic and larger-than-life, is best when he is working on stories that evoke the innocence of golden- and silver-age comics, which is precisely what you get here. The four primary stories in this collection, not technically comics, but illustrations with written captions, each deal with a classic version of one of DC's big heroes struggling with some problem of the real world. Superman tries to solve world hunger, Wonder Woman struggles to get beyond the cultural barriers between her and the women she is trying to protect, Batman fights the root causes of crime in Gotham, and Captain Marvel deals with the abusive father of a boy he has met in the hospital. In each case the hero gains some new wisdom about his or her own limitations and role as a hero.

Rounding out the collection are a series of brief origins of DC's classic heroes and a comic (the only true comic in the book) about the Justice League that is in keeping with the tone of the original four stories. The lessons are stated pretty overtly and the style tends toward the sentimental, but I think it works. The book captures the innocence and sincerity of these classic heroes, but with a modern sensibility. It would make a great introduction to the superheroes for readers of all ages.

9. Daredevil by Brian Micael Bendis and Alex Maleev
It's hard to imagine where Daredevil would be new without Brian Michael Bendis. During the late 90s the series suffered in quality and, presumably, sales and Marvel gave it a reboot in 1998. The first issues of the new series were an improvement over what came before, but still fairly standard superhero fare, even with stories written by Kevin Smith and David Mack, and drawn by Joe Quesada.

But then, after having done an earlier four-issue arc with David Mack, Brian Michael Bendis took over full-time writing duties, starting with issue #26 and continuing for four years and roughly 50 issues. His writing on the book marked an immediate change in tone for the book, with emphasis on strong characterization and snappy dialogue, a cinematic feel inspired by Scorsese, Tarantino, and Mamet, and a return to noir-style crime stories. Illustrating a bulk of Bendis' run was Alex Maleev who helped establish a gritty and realistic (at times photorealistic) look to the series.

The actual storylines are not revolutionary and owe a great debt to Frank Miller's work on the series, with the Kingpin, Bullseye, Elektra, and Gladiator figuring prominently. But with Bendis' gift for character development and natural-sounding dialogue, and Maleev's excellent artwork the series was more fun to read than it had been in many years.

8. Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassaday
Warren Ellis's Planetary follows three super-powered beings who claim to be archaeologists of Earth's secret past, and whose investigations unearth remnants of Godzilla-like monsters, obsolete superheroes, alien civilizations, and all manner of characters that resemble familiar characters of science fiction. It's a neat set-up that is used to comment directly on the nature of mainstream comics and pulp fiction.

The series represents Ellis's best writing and is hampered only by an over-reliance on specific references to, and characters from, other comics. Any weaknesses, however, are more than made up for by the otherwise great stories and the breathtaking artwork of John Cassaday. Just take a look at these pages from the Planetary/Batman crossover.


7. All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely
I don't like Superman. I can appreciate that he was the first superhero and will likely always be considered the best for that fact alone, but I find him terribly boring. He's too powerful and his character is too pure and good to generate that many interesting stories. I'm also not a big fan of Grant Morrison. I feel like much of his writing is purposely obscure and strange without any real point behind it. It's odd, then, that I enjoyed All-Star Superman as much as I did. In fact, it may be the best Superman story I've ever read.

Morrison's series begins with Superman being supercharged with the yellow solar radiation that gives him his abilities, making him more powerful than ever, but also threatening to destroy him on a cellular level. With Superman's days numbered, the rest of the series is like a tour of the long, campy history of Superman, complete with Bizarro, a new kind of kryptonite with transformative powers, a metamorphosed Jimmy Olsen, a superpowered Lois, and more. There are lots of references that comic book geeks will immediately recognize, but it's also accessible to the uninitiated. Because the story takes place outside the DC Universe, it doesn't get bogged down in continuity issues and long character histories. All the characters are presented as if for the first time. It's a fresh, bright take on Superman that pays homage to the past but also feels new and fresh.

6. In the Shadow of No Towers by Art Spiegelman
In the years immediately following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks a great number of artistic responses emerged. Most of them will probably be forgotten, bound as they are to a specific time, but I like to think that Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers will endure longer than others. For one thing, it remains Spiegelman's only volume of new work after the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus.

Also, Spiegelman copes with the trauma of the attacks and his rage over America's political response by looking back to American comics of the early 1900s. The format of the book is modeled after those full-page Sunday strips: each huge two-page is oriented vertically (like the towers) and contains a range of gags and commentaries from Spiegelman that capture the contradictions and conflicting emotions that arose from that momentous day. Spiegelman's work is both intimately private and broadly communal; it is bitterly critical of America and loyally defensive of it.

5. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill
I think what I love most about Alan Moore's League is how it rewards rereading. The first time I read through the primary volumes I was only interested in the main stories: a collection of Victorian-era heroes and monsters teams up to save England from a mysterious villain and, later, a Martian invasion. As expected from Mr. Moore, these are stories are told with impeccable plotting and fascinating characterization. The emergence of the non-super-powered Mina Harker as the series' strongest character is a particulary inspired move.

In the first two volumes Alan Moore supplements these core comics stories with extras like a serialized short story (volume 1) and an extensive Almanac of fictional places from throughout literature (volume 2). At first these seemed superfluous, and I confess I gave up reading the Almanac after the first several pages.

It wasn't until I read The Black Dossier (itself more a lengthy collection of "extra" material than a full comics story) with the essential Jess Nevins annotations and saw reference after reference after reference to events in the Almanac that I realized there is a story there that tells the adventures of Mina and Allan after the Martian invasion. This, combined with The Black Dossier itself, outlines a much longer and richer history of the League than is revealed in the comics stories, and introduces characters and story elements that are still being developed in the Century series.

4. Pictures That Tick by Dave McKean
While I appreciate good artwork in a comic and even recognize that it is an important factor in good storytelling, I generally don't read comics for the art. I read them for the writing, and I pick what I read based on who the writer is.

My primary exception to this rule is Dave McKean. I will read, watch, or look at anything with his name on it. It doesn't hurt that throughout his career he has chosen only great writers to work with (most often Neil Gaiman), but he also creates a good deal of solo work, much of which is collected in Pictures That Tick.

This volume is a good representation of the full gamut of McKean's artwork: ink drawings, paintings, mixed media, photography (with and without photoshopping), and various combinations of them all. His comics aren't always easy to understand, but that's okay: I get the impression that they are often more about experimenting with interesting visuals or setting a mood than about telling a clear story. But that's not to say he doesn't know how to tell a good story when he wants to. "His Story" is a fairly straightforward autobiographical essay about a story McKean's father told him when he was little, accompanied by the visual metaphor of a shard of class working its way into the boy's mind. It sounds weird, but it works.

Even when the comics are not entirely straightforward (like the wordless "Eye", whose title is not actually the word "eye" but a drawing of a human eye), they are still a delight to read simply for Dave McKean's artwork. This is a book that I consider less a group of stories and more a work of visual art. The very book itself, personally designed by McKean from front to back, is a beautifully crafted art object and is my most treasured book in my collection. For years it was very difficult to find, but it has recently been released in paperback, so it can be enjoyed by anyone.

3. Promethea by Alan Moore and J.H. Williams III
Alan Moore has said that his purpose in creating Promethea was to hook readers with a Wonder Woman-like mythical super-heroine, and then hope at least some of those readers stay on as he turns the series into an outlet for his philosophy of magic. It becomes a very challenging read once the protagonist leaves the physical world to embark on an abstractly intellectual tour of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, and I'm not sure how many readers Moore lost in the process, but those who stick around are treated to the most experimental comics of Alan Moore's career.

I still don't know how he managed some of it, like issue #12, each page of which is based on one of cards of the Tarot deck, with accompanying anagrams for Promethea, historical pictures of Aleister Crowley, and a running joke across the bottom of each page, all of which connect back to the theme of the page; or the final issue, #32, which is a summative essay on magic and language that can physically be dismantled and reassembled as two large posters, and that retains a logical structure however it is read.

I can't imagine this working in any other medium. J.H. Williams's artwork illuminates Moore's more difficult ideas and dazzles the reader throughout what, in prose, would be an unforgivably tedious departure from the main storyline. So while Promethea lacks the efficient and concise storytelling of Alan Moore's other masterpieces, its innovative experimentation makes it his best work of this decade.

2. Blankets by Craig Thompson
I feel about autobiographical comics the same as I do about superhero comics: there are way too many, most of them are crap, but occasionally you read an exceptional work that is totally original and transcends the genre. Blankets is such a comic.

I'm sure at least part of the reason I love it is that I can relate to it so well. Blankets is about a boy raised in a Midwestern conservative Christian household coming of age during his last year of high school. It's mostly about Thompson's first love and heartbreak, but in the end it also gets into his shedding of his parents' beliefs.

Thompson's delicate artwork draws the reader into the emotional inner world of his adolescence and elicits tremendous empathy for his characters. Thompson's girlfriend is rendered with such young grace and beauty that the reader falls achingly in love with her right along with the protagonist.

Blankets is nearly flawless in conception and presentation, and deserves its place among the absolute best graphic novels of all time.

1. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth by Chris Ware
Although most of the story was serialized mostly during the 1990s, Jimmy Corrigan wasn't finished and collected as a single volume until 2000, so I'm counting it. Besides, the graphic novel format is how most people experienced it for the first time.

Despite his status as one of the most important comics creators today, Chris Ware's praise often comes with a qualifier. Even the critics who like him tend to celebrate his technical skill, original visual style, and experiments with form, but criticize the content of his stories. I will do nothing of the sort. I think Jimmy Corrigan is an unqualified masterpiece. In real life people don't always achieve reconciliation, they don't alwayas learn valuable lessons from their experiences, and they often just go on with their mundane and unhappy lives.

Despite the gloom, there is a lot to love in this graphic novel. Ware tells the story of three generations of James Corrigans, intercutting between two main stories: the most recent Corrigan, Jimmy, is invited to meet his father for the first time over Thanksgiving; and 100 years previously, Jimmy's grandfather, James Corrigan, struggles to have a relationship with his abusive father in the weeks and months leading up to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. James's loneliness stands in contrast with the majesty of the exposition (gorgeously rendered by Ware's geometric drawings), right up to the heartbreaking climax.

In the present day, the setting of the characters' lives is also integral to their stories. Ware perfectly captures the look and feel of a dull Midwestern town in winter, which accentuates the awkwardness of trying to communicate with a father who is a total stranger.

As mundane as this all seems, by the end of the book the reader has the feeling of having undertaken a great journey. And although Jimmy seems little changed, there is a sense that something important has happened, and that, as in real life, the effects are not immediately apparent but are there nonetheless.

The Reprints
One rule I set for myself in making this list was that I could only choose works that were originally published (including at least a majority of the series) during the last decade. This means no reprinted material. However, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention two essential collections that came out during this decade.

Absolute Sandman by Neil Gaiman and various
DC has released a wealth of material in their Absolute format in the last several years, some of which has been great and some of which has been disappointingly identical to their standard releases (but bigger). There's little doubt, though, that no other volumes can compare with what was done with Sandman. The first entire volume completely recolored the original art in a way that dramatically enhances the story, and all four volumes boast copious amounts of bonus material, including a couple of stories that have been reprinted nowhere else. This is how Sandman needs to be read.

Akira (Dark Horse Reprints) by Katsuhiro Otomo
This decade also saw the first publication of Akira in English, which still surprises me, considering the importance of the Akira movie in American culture. And even though I had seen the film many times, the manga series still blew me away when I finally got to read it. With incredible artwork and an epic story that dwarfs the movie but still manages to be cohesive, it's a crime that this was unavailable in America for so long, and an even greater crime that it went back out of print. Fortunately, I've just learned that Random House is in the process of bringing it back in a new edition.