This is a long time coming; sorry for the delay. I had planned to publish this roundup shortly before Christmas, but things just kind of got away from me. So instead, we have an extra-long list with entries from a variety of well-respected comics folk. This is strictly from my RSS feed; I'll be doing a Google search sometime soon to see what else I can turn up for the fifth roundup. And there are still a few notable internet-based lists outstanding, plus the Comics Journal's year in review. So there's plenty of time to get your lists in before I publish the final meta-list.
Of note this time: I've changed around the "will not use" list, in that I'm not cataloging every unusable list anymore. It just sort of seems pointless, and maybe a bit petulant, to catalogue lists merely for the sake of saying I won't include them. I'll continue to provide links to lists which I think are worth your time, even though I don't feel like I can use them for the meta-list project. Yes, that includes Wizard's list. It's not an endorsement so much as an acknowledgment of their place in comics discourse. Er, maybe their historical place in comics discourse, given the way things are going there.
Also: at the request of Marc-Oliver Frisch, I now have labeled every post related to the meta-list project. (Actually, I had already labeled these posts, but hadn't figured out how to get labels back on the posts after I apparently removed them at some point. Don't ask me, I just type here.) There's a link on the sidebar for this year's project, as well as last year's. And I've also included my own best of 2007 list and my ongoing 2008 workbook posts.
Observation: is Kevin Huizenga the new Chris Ware, ie, the alt/whatever cartoonist most likely to show up on lists otherwise exclusively concerned with assembly line comics? If so, will he be facing a backlash similar to the one currently afflicting (if that's the right word) Chris Ware? I'm guessing that the less morose tone of his books will guard against such a reaction, but I'm keeping my eyes open for it in 2009. Not that it really matters on anything beyond a discursive level, but many of you know how I feel about discourse by now.
Remember, if you know of a list not included below, please email me or leave a comment pointing me in the right direction. And please, don't rush getting your lists in on my account. I wouldn't want anyone to do this in this in the first place, but it's totally unnecessary besides. The Comics Journal won't publish their best of 2008 issue until February (I think), and I won't be doing one anytime soon either. I've got about 8-10 books I want to consider that haven't come in the mail yet. Among them: Kramers Ergot 7. Anyone know what's going on with Amazon's distribution of this book?
Criteria for inclusion in the Meta-List:
-list must contain no fewer than five items and no more than fifty
-list must be a general best-of list, not a series of categorical awards like "best superhero book," "best children's book," etc.
-list must not be limited to superhero comics, manga, major publishers, etc.
-I don't include votes for things like "everything Warren Ellis wrote in 2008"
-when a list includes a vote for a title which came out in a year prior to 2008, I usually tally everything like I normally would; it's rare that there are enough votes for an out-of-date item for it to crack the top 100
-no overt sleaziness (like voting for your own work; will be determined on a case-by-case basis)
New lists are in green.
GENERAL INTEREST LISTS:
Amazon
Daily Vanguard (Portland State University)
New York Magazine
OC Weekly (OC Weekly is not the periodical for me--anyone other than my brother likely to get that joke?)
Oklahoman: Part 1 (graphic novels); Part 2 (periodicals)
Publishers Weekly
USA Today
Village Voice (RC Baker)
Village Voice (a different list, this one by Richard Gehr; notable for stretching the definition of "comics" to include an animated film)
Washington Post
COMICS-FOCUSED LISTS:
Bacardi, Johnny
Badman, Derik
Andrew Neal (Thanks, Leigh!)
Clough, Rob
Cronin, Brian
Doane, Alan David
Graphic Novel Reporter
Harbin, Dustin
Hickey, Andrew
Hipster Dad
Jog
Lockefeer, Wim
Lorah, Michael
Meehan, Bram
Mozzocco, J. Caleb (Unless Caleb specifically asks me not to, I'm going to use his top 20 only, since that's what he posted at Blogorama. However, I'm linking to his more exhaustive post because, well, it's more exhaustive.)
Ostrander, Ben
Robot 6 folks (Not all will count; see criteria above. BTW, since I haven't said it yet, welcome back, dudes.
Sobel, Marc
Stone, Tucker: Part 1; Part 2
Tomio, Jay
COMICS PROFESSIONALS:
Reynolds, Eric
Smith, Jeff
Various (not all will be used, as some fail to meet the standards enumerated above; also, this includes what seems like the 217th Dan Goldman list I've seen, and, if my memory is holding up, there's less overlap than you might expect among the lists)
QUESTIONABLE/INCOMPLETE:
Amazon.jp (The Japanese branch of Amazon's best comics and "light novels." Interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with it since much (most?) of this is not available in English yet, and the light novels are definitely not comics. On the other hand, those aren't necessarily good reasons to exclude this list. Any thoughts?)
Associated Content (Written by Russell Burlingame of the new Blogorama crew. Framed as "the best and worst of 2008," I took this to be more of a year in review kind of list. Plus it might be too narrow (Echo is the only not-at-the-front-of-Diamond title listed). We'll see if Burlingame posts a best of 2008 list at Blogorama.)
Boyd, Robert (Boyd admits this is a "best of things I read this year, but which were not necessarily published in 2008." But most of this list does consist of 2008 releases, so I'll almost certainly count it when the time comes. UPDATED: I've included it.)
Callahan, Timothy (It's a list of the top 20 collected editions of 2008. Callahan has promised a separate list of the top 10 original comics of 2008, and I'll combine and tally the two lists once he publishes that list.)
Drawn!, part one (Matt Forsythe) (This contains one comic which is definitely not 2008 (Tekkon Kinkreet) and one which is either a 2007 entry if you consider it a book or a 2008 entry if you consider it a webcomic (Fart Party). My Brain is Hanging Upside Down and Cul de Sac are definite 2008 comic releases. I'm not sure what you would consider the Nicholas series. The rest are things which not everyone would agree are comics. My inclination is to count this list anyway, since (a) the non-comics stuff won't accumulate enough other votes to place, and (b) I'll disqualify any non-2008 titles when I finalize the meta-list. Do note that I'm not trying to denigrate the list because it doesn't fit into this project; I like seeing unconventional lists, and it's not like Drawn! is a comics-only blog. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
Drawn, part two (John Martz) (See comments above, except that this list a greater number of 2008 titles that most would classify as unambiguously comics. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
The Independent (Seems to have an awful lot of books from before 2008--Sleepwalk? Embroideries?--which might reflect new British editions, but I'm skeptical. Comics and Sequential Art seriously never came out in the UK before 2008? Just seems like a lazy list.)
Nicholson, Brian (I don't have any problem with it, but Brian suggests he doesn't "read enough to be considered a serious critic." I'm inclined to include it, unless Brian asks me not to.)
NPR (UPDATED: They've made two lists so far: one for "graphic novels" and one for superhero books. I'm not sure if there are any further lists coming or not; I'm holding off on distributing this vote until I'm reasonably sure there are no more lists forthcoming For now, I've removed all the points distributed for the original graphic novels list.)
Reed, Brian (Delimited to single issues; he says other categories will be coming later)
Some dude on Amazon (Do I really want to include Amazon lists? I mean, it's not a bad list, aside from being a little long, but really...)
St. Louis Today (Includes one from 2007, which reduces the list down to a total of four, below the minimum threshold. I'll probably include it in the final tally, and ignore the votes for Laika. UPDATE: I've included it.)
Douglas Wolk (I think this is a gift guide, not a best-of list?)
Various message board posters (Most of these fail to meet my minimal criteria (ie, they're all Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image). And I haven't decided whether or not to include a bunch of hastily compiled message board lists. I mean, if this were Abhay Khosla or something, I would reconsider, but these are a bunch of basically anonymous dudes on a Hellblazer forum.)
WILL NOT USE:
Comic Book Resources (too many entries; on a qualitative level, I do share Marc-Oliver Frisch's bemusement over the whole thing, but I certainly would have counted it, had it been slightly less gargantuan)
Comics Should Be Good/Danielle Leigh Readers' Choice (too short, categorical, and delimited to manga)
DCBS blog (self-described as "a semi-random list")
Ferraro, Dave (Delimited to superheroes; Ferraro plans to make an overall best-of list which will include some of these titles. Didn't know that Echo was a sci-fi/fantasy comic.)
Kethylia (delimited to manga)
Patriot News/Chris Mautner (this is a an awards list, plus it's just easier to use Chris' list from Robot 6 (see above); I will change this, of course, at Chris' request)
Pop Culture Shock (delimited to manga)
School Library Journal (I think this is limited to comics for kids. If that isn't the case, please let me know and I'll include it in the project.)
Sequential Tart (Two lists, but neither meets the minimum number of entries for inclusion.)
Smith, Shannon (specifically delimited to mini-comics and web comics; well worth your time, though)
Various cartoonists at Forbidden Planet (Forbidden Planet is conducting a series of interviews with cartoonists, asking for a top three list from each. This is below the minimum threshold for this project, but you should check out this link, which should take you to all of the interviews conducted so far. Bryan Talbot is the most prominent interviewee to date.)
Wizard (Not the official list, at least not yet. This is a categorical awards list, and thus ineligible. What a strange list--a bunch of superhero comics, plus Kramers Ergot 7.)
Showing posts with label best of 2008 meta-list. Show all posts
Showing posts with label best of 2008 meta-list. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Third roundup of best of 2008 lists
Lots of new stuff this time. A conundrum as well: NPR has now made a separate list for the best superhero comics of 2008. Huh? Is there a reason this wasn't integrated into the best graphic novels of 2008 list? This isn't affirmative action for superhero comics--it's separate-but-equal. Look, I can understand multiple lists in different categories, and I usually included lists like that last year if I could discern some sense of logic in them. For instance: Matthew Brady made different lists based on method of delivery; it's not a distinction I would make, but I can understand the reasoning. A bit closer to the NPR situation was Sean Collins, who made two lists broadly defined as "artsy" and "genre-ish." But the latter wasn't just superhero comics; in fact, it included Daybreak by Brian Ralph, a cartoonist usually lumped in with the "artsy" crowd.
Maybe I'm wrong; maybe there's not such a big difference between Sean's lists and this one. I guess I'm willing to give Sean the benefit of the doubt because I read his blog, and I know that he has his own approach to appreciating genre works and more literary/artistic/whatever works. I don't think I've quite figured out his tastes yet (I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of Green Lantern), but I respect where he's coming from. This NPR thing, though, it's weird. Is the implication that superhero comics can't compare to the serious stuff, but somehow deserves mention for unclear reasons (maybe the popularity of the Batman and Iron Man movies)? Was there a limit of five titles per list imposed from above, thus tying Laurel Maury's hands and somehow necessitating a second list? Is there another list to come, maybe one that will consider manga or webcomics? If not, do I include the superhero list, ignore it, or do I just disqualify Maury's vote altogether?
I'm not just asking rhetorical questions here; I really would appreciate some feedback. For now, I'm not including the superhero list, and I'm not removing the points for the graphic novels list.
All right, what else do we have? There's a really solid new list from the Village Voice, one of the best one I've read from a general interest source this year (the Daily Vanguard list is also very much to my tastes). Jeff Smith (perhaps you've heard of him?) checks in with the first list from a comics professional which meets the minimum length requirements. The venerable Johnny Bacardi has posted his list. There's also a list from the equally venerable Robert Boyd. Plus lots of other lists worth your time.
Remember, if you know of a list not included below, please email me or leave a comment pointing me in the right direction. And please, don't rush getting your lists in on my account. I wouldn't want anyone to do this in this in the first place, but it's totally unneccesary besides. The Comics Journal won't publish their best of 2008 issue until February (I think), and I won't be doing one anytime soon either. I've got about 8-10 books I want to consider that haven't come in the mail yet. Among them: Kramers Ergot 7. Anyone know what's going on with Amazon's distribution of this book?
Criteria for inclusion in the Meta-List:
-list must contain no fewer than five items and no more than fifty
-list must be a general best-of list, not a series of categorical awards like "best superhero book," "best children's book," etc.
-list must not be limited to superhero comics, manga, major publishers, etc.
-I don't include votes for things like "everything Warren Ellis wrote in 2008"
-when a list includes a vote for a title which came out in a year prior to 2008, I usually tally everything like I normally would; it's rare that there are enough votes for an out-of-date item for it to crack the top 100
-no overt sleaziness (like voting for your own work; will be determined on a case-by-case basis)
New lists are in green.
GENERAL INTEREST LISTS:
Amazon
Daily Vanguard (Portland State University)
New York Magazine
NPR
Publishers Weekly
Village Voice
Washington Post
COMICS-FOCUSED LISTS:
Bacardi, Johnny
Doane, Alan David
Harbin, Dustin
Hickey, Andrew
Hipster Dad
Lockefeer, Wim
Tomio, Jay
COMICS PROFESSIONALS:
Smith, Jeff
QUESTIONABLE:
Amazon.jp (The Japanese branch of Amazon's best comics and "light novels." Interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with it since much (most?) of this is not available in English yet, and the light novels are definitely not comics. On the other hand, those aren't necessarily good reasons to exclude this list. Any thoughts?)
Associated Content (Written by Russell Burlingame of the new Blogorama crew. Framed as "the best and worst of 2008," I took this to be more of a year in review kind of list. Plus it might be too narrow (Echo is the only not-at-the-front-of-Diamond title listed). We'll see if Burlingame posts a best of 2008 list at Blogorama.)
Boyd, Robert (Boyd admits this is a "best of things I read this year, but which were not necessarily published in 2008." But most of this list does consist of 2008 releases, so I'll almost certainly count it when the time comes.)
Callahan, Timothy (It's a list of the top 20 collected editions of 2008. Callahan has promised a separate list of the top 10 original comics of 2008, and I'll combine and tally the two lists once he publishes that list.)
Drawn!, part one (Matt Forsythe) (This contains one comic which is definitely not 2008 (Tekkon Kinkreet) and one which is either a 2007 entry if you consider it a book or a 2008 entry if you consider it a webcomic (Fart Party). My Brain is Hanging Upside Down and Cul de Sac are definite 2008 comic releases. I'm not sure what you would consider the Nicholas series. The rest are things which not everyone would agree are comics. My inclination is to count this list anyway, since (a) the non-comics stuff won't accumulate enough other votes to place, and (b) I'll disqualify any non-2008 titles when I finalize the meta-list. Do note that I'm not trying to denigrate the list because it doesn't fit into this project; I like seeing unconventional lists, and it's not like Drawn! is a comics-only blog. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
Drawn, part two (John Martz) (See comments above, except that this list a greater number of 2008 titles that most would classify as unambiguously comics. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
The Independent (Seems to have an awful lot of books from before 2008--Sleepwalk? Embroideries?--which might reflect new British editions, but I'm skeptical. Comics and Sequential Art seriously never came out in the UK before 2008? Just seems like a lazy list.)
Nicholson, Brian (I don't have any problem with it, but Brian suggests he doesn't "read enough to be considered a serious critic." I'm inclined to include it, unless Brian asks me not to.)
NPR (Their all-superhero list. See above.)
Some dude on Amazon (Do I really want to include Amazon lists? I mean, it's not a bad list, aside from being a little long, but really...)
St. Louis Today (Includes one from 2007, which reduces the list down to a total of four, below the minimum threshold. I'll probably include it in the final tally, and ignore the votes for Laika. UPDATE: I've included it.)
Douglas Wolk (I think this is a gift guide, not a best-of list?)
Various message board posters (Most of these fail to meet my minimal criteria (ie, they're all Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image). And I haven't decided whether or not to include a bunch of hastily compiled message board lists. I mean, if this were Abhay Khosla or something, I would reconsider, but these are a bunch of basically anonymous dudes on a Hellblazer forum.)
WILL NOT USE:
Brownfield, Troy and Lucas Siegel (Delimited to superhero comics)
Caleb Monroe (UPDATED: I had this among the regular comics-focused lists until I realized that its author had voted for a book he co-wrote, thus prompting the newest criterion for inclusion listed above.)
Comics Should Be Good/Danielle Leigh Readers' Choice (too short, categorical, and delimited to manga)
IGN (Categorical awards. If you think Wizard's gotten too snooty, this is the list for you.)
Kethylia (delimited to manga)
Maxwell, Matt (Doesn't include the minimum number of comics, mostly because apparently Maxwell agrees with Steven Grant re: the quality of comics in 2008. Much pontification along those lines, if you're looking for more of that.)
Pop Culture Shock (delimited to manga)
Sequential Tart (Two lists, but neither meets the minimum number of entries for inclusion.)
Smith, Shannon (specifically delimited to mini-comics and web comics; well worth your time, though)
Various cartoonists at Forbidden Planet (Forbidden Planet is conducting a series of interviews with cartoonists, asking for a top three list from each. This is below the minimum threshold for this project, but you should check out this link, which should take you to all of the interviews conducted so far. Bryan Talbot is the most prominent interviewee to date.)
Wizard (Not the official list, at least not yet. This is a categorical awards list, and thus ineligible. What a strange list--a bunch of superhero comics, plus Kramers Ergot 7.)
Maybe I'm wrong; maybe there's not such a big difference between Sean's lists and this one. I guess I'm willing to give Sean the benefit of the doubt because I read his blog, and I know that he has his own approach to appreciating genre works and more literary/artistic/whatever works. I don't think I've quite figured out his tastes yet (I don't think I'll ever understand the appeal of Green Lantern), but I respect where he's coming from. This NPR thing, though, it's weird. Is the implication that superhero comics can't compare to the serious stuff, but somehow deserves mention for unclear reasons (maybe the popularity of the Batman and Iron Man movies)? Was there a limit of five titles per list imposed from above, thus tying Laurel Maury's hands and somehow necessitating a second list? Is there another list to come, maybe one that will consider manga or webcomics? If not, do I include the superhero list, ignore it, or do I just disqualify Maury's vote altogether?
I'm not just asking rhetorical questions here; I really would appreciate some feedback. For now, I'm not including the superhero list, and I'm not removing the points for the graphic novels list.
All right, what else do we have? There's a really solid new list from the Village Voice, one of the best one I've read from a general interest source this year (the Daily Vanguard list is also very much to my tastes). Jeff Smith (perhaps you've heard of him?) checks in with the first list from a comics professional which meets the minimum length requirements. The venerable Johnny Bacardi has posted his list. There's also a list from the equally venerable Robert Boyd. Plus lots of other lists worth your time.
Remember, if you know of a list not included below, please email me or leave a comment pointing me in the right direction. And please, don't rush getting your lists in on my account. I wouldn't want anyone to do this in this in the first place, but it's totally unneccesary besides. The Comics Journal won't publish their best of 2008 issue until February (I think), and I won't be doing one anytime soon either. I've got about 8-10 books I want to consider that haven't come in the mail yet. Among them: Kramers Ergot 7. Anyone know what's going on with Amazon's distribution of this book?
Criteria for inclusion in the Meta-List:
-list must contain no fewer than five items and no more than fifty
-list must be a general best-of list, not a series of categorical awards like "best superhero book," "best children's book," etc.
-list must not be limited to superhero comics, manga, major publishers, etc.
-I don't include votes for things like "everything Warren Ellis wrote in 2008"
-when a list includes a vote for a title which came out in a year prior to 2008, I usually tally everything like I normally would; it's rare that there are enough votes for an out-of-date item for it to crack the top 100
-no overt sleaziness (like voting for your own work; will be determined on a case-by-case basis)
New lists are in green.
GENERAL INTEREST LISTS:
Amazon
Daily Vanguard (Portland State University)
New York Magazine
NPR
Publishers Weekly
Village Voice
Washington Post
COMICS-FOCUSED LISTS:
Bacardi, Johnny
Doane, Alan David
Harbin, Dustin
Hickey, Andrew
Hipster Dad
Lockefeer, Wim
Tomio, Jay
COMICS PROFESSIONALS:
Smith, Jeff
QUESTIONABLE:
Amazon.jp (The Japanese branch of Amazon's best comics and "light novels." Interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with it since much (most?) of this is not available in English yet, and the light novels are definitely not comics. On the other hand, those aren't necessarily good reasons to exclude this list. Any thoughts?)
Associated Content (Written by Russell Burlingame of the new Blogorama crew. Framed as "the best and worst of 2008," I took this to be more of a year in review kind of list. Plus it might be too narrow (Echo is the only not-at-the-front-of-Diamond title listed). We'll see if Burlingame posts a best of 2008 list at Blogorama.)
Boyd, Robert (Boyd admits this is a "best of things I read this year, but which were not necessarily published in 2008." But most of this list does consist of 2008 releases, so I'll almost certainly count it when the time comes.)
Callahan, Timothy (It's a list of the top 20 collected editions of 2008. Callahan has promised a separate list of the top 10 original comics of 2008, and I'll combine and tally the two lists once he publishes that list.)
Drawn!, part one (Matt Forsythe) (This contains one comic which is definitely not 2008 (Tekkon Kinkreet) and one which is either a 2007 entry if you consider it a book or a 2008 entry if you consider it a webcomic (Fart Party). My Brain is Hanging Upside Down and Cul de Sac are definite 2008 comic releases. I'm not sure what you would consider the Nicholas series. The rest are things which not everyone would agree are comics. My inclination is to count this list anyway, since (a) the non-comics stuff won't accumulate enough other votes to place, and (b) I'll disqualify any non-2008 titles when I finalize the meta-list. Do note that I'm not trying to denigrate the list because it doesn't fit into this project; I like seeing unconventional lists, and it's not like Drawn! is a comics-only blog. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
Drawn, part two (John Martz) (See comments above, except that this list a greater number of 2008 titles that most would classify as unambiguously comics. UPDATE: I have included this list.)
The Independent (Seems to have an awful lot of books from before 2008--Sleepwalk? Embroideries?--which might reflect new British editions, but I'm skeptical. Comics and Sequential Art seriously never came out in the UK before 2008? Just seems like a lazy list.)
Nicholson, Brian (I don't have any problem with it, but Brian suggests he doesn't "read enough to be considered a serious critic." I'm inclined to include it, unless Brian asks me not to.)
NPR (Their all-superhero list. See above.)
Some dude on Amazon (Do I really want to include Amazon lists? I mean, it's not a bad list, aside from being a little long, but really...)
St. Louis Today (Includes one from 2007, which reduces the list down to a total of four, below the minimum threshold. I'll probably include it in the final tally, and ignore the votes for Laika. UPDATE: I've included it.)
Douglas Wolk (I think this is a gift guide, not a best-of list?)
Various message board posters (Most of these fail to meet my minimal criteria (ie, they're all Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image). And I haven't decided whether or not to include a bunch of hastily compiled message board lists. I mean, if this were Abhay Khosla or something, I would reconsider, but these are a bunch of basically anonymous dudes on a Hellblazer forum.)
WILL NOT USE:
Brownfield, Troy and Lucas Siegel (Delimited to superhero comics)
Caleb Monroe (UPDATED: I had this among the regular comics-focused lists until I realized that its author had voted for a book he co-wrote, thus prompting the newest criterion for inclusion listed above.)
Comics Should Be Good/Danielle Leigh Readers' Choice (too short, categorical, and delimited to manga)
IGN (Categorical awards. If you think Wizard's gotten too snooty, this is the list for you.)
Kethylia (delimited to manga)
Maxwell, Matt (Doesn't include the minimum number of comics, mostly because apparently Maxwell agrees with Steven Grant re: the quality of comics in 2008. Much pontification along those lines, if you're looking for more of that.)
Pop Culture Shock (delimited to manga)
Sequential Tart (Two lists, but neither meets the minimum number of entries for inclusion.)
Smith, Shannon (specifically delimited to mini-comics and web comics; well worth your time, though)
Various cartoonists at Forbidden Planet (Forbidden Planet is conducting a series of interviews with cartoonists, asking for a top three list from each. This is below the minimum threshold for this project, but you should check out this link, which should take you to all of the interviews conducted so far. Bryan Talbot is the most prominent interviewee to date.)
Wizard (Not the official list, at least not yet. This is a categorical awards list, and thus ineligible. What a strange list--a bunch of superhero comics, plus Kramers Ergot 7.)
Friday, December 12, 2008
Second roundup of best of 2008 lists
A few Google search results in this one, plus a few that I've seen linked to around the internet and one which was sent via email. If you're aware of a list (yours or someone else's) which isn't included here, please leave a link or description in the comments field.
Once again, my criteria for inclusion in the Meta-List:
-list must contain no fewer than five items and no more than fifty
-list must be a general best-of list, not a series of categorical awards like "best superhero book," "best children's book," etc.
-list must not be limited to superhero comics, manga, major publishers, etc.
-I don't include votes for things like "everything Warren Ellis wrote in 2008"
-when a list includes a vote for a title which came out in a year prior to 2008, I usually tally everything like I normally would; it's rare that there are enough votes for an out-of-date item for it to crack the top 100
New additions are in green.
GENERAL INTEREST LISTS:
Amazon
Daily Vanguard (Portland State University)
New York Magazine
NPR
Publishers Weekly
Washington Post
COMICS-FOCUSED LISTS:
Caleb (last name unknown) at Jim Hanley's Universe
Doane, Alan David
Harbin, Dustin
Hickey, Andrew
Hipster Dad
QUESTIONABLE:
Amazon.jp (The Japanese branch of Amazon's best comics and "light novels." Interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with it since much (most?) of this is not available in English yet, and the light novels are definitely not comics. On the other hand, those aren't necessarily good reasons to exclude this list. Any thoughts?
Associated Content (Written by Russell Burlingame of the new Blogorama crew. Framed as "the best and worst of 2008," I took this to be more of a year in review kind of list. Plus it might be too narrow (Echo is the only not-at-the-front-of-Diamond title listed). We'll see if Burlingame posts a best of 2008 list at Blogorama.)
Drawn!, part one (Matt Forsythe) (This contains one comic which is definitely not 2008 (Tekkon Kinkreet) and one which is either a 2007 entry if you consider it a book or a 2008 entry if you consider it a webcomic (Fart Party). My Brain is Hanging Upside Down and Cul de Sac are definite 2008 comic releases. I'm not sure what you would consider the Nicholas series. The rest are things which not everyone would agree are comics. My inclination is to count this list anyway, since (a) the non-comics stuff won't accumulate enough other votes to place, and (b) I'll disqualify any non-2008 titles when I finalize the meta-list. Do note that I'm not trying to denigrate the list because it doesn't fit into this project; I like seeing unconventional lists, and it's not like Drawn! is a comics-only blog.)
Drawn, part two (John Martz) (See comments above, except that this list a greater number of 2008 titles that most would classify as unambiguously comics.)
The Independent (Seems to have an awful lot of books from before 2008--Sleepwalk? Embroideries?--which might reflect new British editions, but I'm skeptical. Comics and Sequential Art seriously never came out in the UK before 2008? Just seems like a lazy list.)
Some dude on Amazon (Do I really want to include Amazon lists? I mean, it's not a bad list, aside from being a little long, but really...)
St. Louis Today (Includes one from 2007, which reduces the list down to a total of four, below the minimum threshold. I'll probably include it in the final tally, and ignore the votes for Laika. UPDATE: I've included it.)
Douglas Wolk (I think this is a gift guide, not a best-of list?)
Various message board posters (Most of these fail to meet my minimal criteria (ie, they're all Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image). And I haven't decided whether or not to include a bunch of hastily compiled message board lists. I mean, if this were Abhay Khosla or something, I would reconsider, but these are a bunch of basically anonymous dudes on a Hellblazer forum.)
WILL NOT USE:
Comics Should Be Good/Danielle Leigh Readers' Choice (too short, categorical, and delimited to manga)
Smith, Shannon (specifically delimited to mini-comics and web comics; well worth your time, though)
Talbot, Bryan (too short, includes stuff from 2007)
Wizard (Not the official list, at least not yet. This is a categorical awards list, and thus ineligible. What a strange list--a bunch of superhero comics, plus Kramers Ergot 7.)
Once again, my criteria for inclusion in the Meta-List:
-list must contain no fewer than five items and no more than fifty
-list must be a general best-of list, not a series of categorical awards like "best superhero book," "best children's book," etc.
-list must not be limited to superhero comics, manga, major publishers, etc.
-I don't include votes for things like "everything Warren Ellis wrote in 2008"
-when a list includes a vote for a title which came out in a year prior to 2008, I usually tally everything like I normally would; it's rare that there are enough votes for an out-of-date item for it to crack the top 100
New additions are in green.
GENERAL INTEREST LISTS:
Amazon
Daily Vanguard (Portland State University)
New York Magazine
NPR
Publishers Weekly
Washington Post
COMICS-FOCUSED LISTS:
Caleb (last name unknown) at Jim Hanley's Universe
Doane, Alan David
Harbin, Dustin
Hickey, Andrew
Hipster Dad
QUESTIONABLE:
Amazon.jp (The Japanese branch of Amazon's best comics and "light novels." Interesting, but I'm not sure what to do with it since much (most?) of this is not available in English yet, and the light novels are definitely not comics. On the other hand, those aren't necessarily good reasons to exclude this list. Any thoughts?
Associated Content (Written by Russell Burlingame of the new Blogorama crew. Framed as "the best and worst of 2008," I took this to be more of a year in review kind of list. Plus it might be too narrow (Echo is the only not-at-the-front-of-Diamond title listed). We'll see if Burlingame posts a best of 2008 list at Blogorama.)
Drawn!, part one (Matt Forsythe) (This contains one comic which is definitely not 2008 (Tekkon Kinkreet) and one which is either a 2007 entry if you consider it a book or a 2008 entry if you consider it a webcomic (Fart Party). My Brain is Hanging Upside Down and Cul de Sac are definite 2008 comic releases. I'm not sure what you would consider the Nicholas series. The rest are things which not everyone would agree are comics. My inclination is to count this list anyway, since (a) the non-comics stuff won't accumulate enough other votes to place, and (b) I'll disqualify any non-2008 titles when I finalize the meta-list. Do note that I'm not trying to denigrate the list because it doesn't fit into this project; I like seeing unconventional lists, and it's not like Drawn! is a comics-only blog.)
Drawn, part two (John Martz) (See comments above, except that this list a greater number of 2008 titles that most would classify as unambiguously comics.)
The Independent (Seems to have an awful lot of books from before 2008--Sleepwalk? Embroideries?--which might reflect new British editions, but I'm skeptical. Comics and Sequential Art seriously never came out in the UK before 2008? Just seems like a lazy list.)
Some dude on Amazon (Do I really want to include Amazon lists? I mean, it's not a bad list, aside from being a little long, but really...)
St. Louis Today (Includes one from 2007, which reduces the list down to a total of four, below the minimum threshold. I'll probably include it in the final tally, and ignore the votes for Laika. UPDATE: I've included it.)
Douglas Wolk (I think this is a gift guide, not a best-of list?)
Various message board posters (Most of these fail to meet my minimal criteria (ie, they're all Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and Image). And I haven't decided whether or not to include a bunch of hastily compiled message board lists. I mean, if this were Abhay Khosla or something, I would reconsider, but these are a bunch of basically anonymous dudes on a Hellblazer forum.)
WILL NOT USE:
Comics Should Be Good/Danielle Leigh Readers' Choice (too short, categorical, and delimited to manga)
Smith, Shannon (specifically delimited to mini-comics and web comics; well worth your time, though)
Talbot, Bryan (too short, includes stuff from 2007)
Wizard (Not the official list, at least not yet. This is a categorical awards list, and thus ineligible. What a strange list--a bunch of superhero comics, plus Kramers Ergot 7.)
Thursday, December 11, 2008
What I'm looking for is a list from an omniscient robot
-Found a bunch of links to best of 2008 lists today. I'll post an updated master list tomorrow. The most interesting new ones definitely those from Drawn, but they're really unusual lists. And kind of problematic for my project (more on that tomorrow). But they're still really good lists, especially for people whose interests in comics are broad enough to include things that technically might not be comics. If you know what I mean.
As for the others.... Look, the lists you've all seen by now are, generally speaking, the best lists out there at the moment. With maybe one or two exceptions, these new lists fall into one of two categories: lists from well-known sources which kind of suck, or lists from basically unknown sources that don't suck. Okay, there are also a few unknown/suck combinations as well. The biggest gap between name value and quality of thought comes from the Washington Post (scroll down). Their list from last year sucked as well. I'm willing to bet that their lists are comprised entirely of whatever they're sent, and that 90% of what they're sent comes from Dark Horse and DC. Either that or this list is farted out by someone who doesn't have the time/energy/expertise to put into such things. But based on some of the strange choices in 2007, I'd guess the former.
Plus: the first appearance of Buffy on one of these things! Shit, I thought all that was over by now. I suppose this will pop up on a few other lists, especially if Entertainment Weekly bothers to make one this year.
-A few people have shared some thoughts about the process of making lists in the past couple of days, and I agree with very little of what I've read. Undoubtedly the least valuable of these posts comes from Lucas Siegel of the new Blog@Newsarama. I feel sort of responsible for the shit storm that follows in the comics, given that I mockingly linked to the article yesterday (Heidi MacDonald even repeats my description of Siegel's position as "affirmative action for superhero comics"). Really, I'm not sure it merits this much attention in and of itself (as an expression of a larger sentiment, perhaps it does; more on this later). Tom Spurgeon pretty much captures its spirit perfectly in describing it as something "from a Usenet Group in 1996."
But this isn't the first instance of anti-best of list backlash from the new Blog@Newsarama crew. Getting much less attention is this post from Sarah Jaffe, taking the New York Magazine top 10 (or 12) list to task for not including the collected Local. If that's going to be her standard for excellence in these lists, she's going to be sorely disappointed; in my experience compiling these things, very few books show up in more than a small fraction of lists. And from what I've seen so far, the collected Local isn't going to be one of them this year. Why? For one thing, it's a collection of comics previously published from 2005 to 2008. Bloggers and writers for comics-oriented publications tend to ignore these sorts of collections, making them particularly dependent on lists coming from general interest publications. Of the six lists like this I've compiled so far, only NPR includes the collected Local. No comics-focused sources have ranked it yet.
Still, I take Jaffe's comment to be more boosterism than complaint; I think she's more interested in drumming up her readers' interest in the book than anything. I was more disappointed in the comments her post elicited, especially this one by Ryan Higgins:
It’s depressing sometimes that these lists always consist of books that I can’t sell to save my life. Outside of Fables, I stocked a few of these, and not a single one has sold.
I'm not sure what Higgins' point is. If he's bemoaning his inability to sell quality works to his customers, I would think this would be more of a self-deprecating statement. You know, "what does it say about me as a salesman that I can't sell comics which the critical consensus rates as the best of the year." Or maybe, "Boy, our customers suck." That kind of thing. Instead, this seems more in line with Lucas Siegel's position that there are too many "pretentious" choices on these lists, that critics don't have their finger on the pulse of what the comics industry is really about, etc., etc.
This isn't anything new, of course. We've seen countless examples of superhero fan rage at the alleged snobbery of the art/literary comics contingent. I'm finding the superhero people a little touchier lately, though. It used to take statements of outright derision to set them off, but I'm seeing increasingly volcanic reactions to the omission of superhero comics from discussions of what constitutes the "best" in comics. I first noticed this during the Best American Comics 2007 fiasco from last year; it looks like we're seeing it again now.
I can't attribute this trend (assuming it's actually a trend and not a figment of my imagination) to anything with absolute certainty, but I've got some ideas. We see many superhero partisans (perhaps most notably Paul O'Brien) cite the popularity of superhero movies as evidence that superhero comics better reflect mainstream tastes than something like Acme Novelty Library. Somehow this leads to the conclusion that anything purporting to list the "best" comics is somehow flawed if it fails to include superhero comics.
The problem here how you get from the factual statement that the general public likes superhero movies to the questionable conclusion that best of lists/anthologies must include superhero comics. There are at least three assertions one must accept to get from (a) to (b):
1. There are superhero comics from the period in question which are worthy of inclusion in best of lists/anthologies.
2. The aforementioned superhero comics will appeal to the segment of the general public which enjoys superhero movies.
3. Best of lists/anthologies must reflect popular tastes in order to be considered legitimate.
Clearly there are problems with all three assertions. In clarifying his original post, Siegel suggests that most shonen manga somehow qualify as superhero comics. I think this greatly stretches the definition of "superhero" as a genre, but we'll leave that aside. By including things like, presumably, Naruto or Bleach, you can beef up assertion #2: these comics are popular, and they're popular for the same reason movies like Iron Man and The Dark Knight are popular. Again, I've got my doubts about this, but let's put that aside. Does the popularity of these comics necessitate their inclusion in a best of list or anthology?
I don't see how this follows. There are a number of commenters who distrust the idea of best of lists because they overvalue the concepts of objectivity and expertise. In other words, you can't trust most lists because (a) they reflect the list-maker's subjective tastes and (b) it's extremely unlikely that the list-maker will have read every single comic of any merit in any given year. Thus, once can view the inclusion of a couple of superhero comics as evidence that neither of these problems afflict a given list. If a list full of artsy fartsy comics includes one or two Marvel or DC titles, it can provide the illusion that the list-maker has expertise in/appreciation of all areas of comics, even if the only superhero comics (s)he has read all year long were written by Grant Morrison.*
There are, naturally, going to be some people who include Captain America alongside Alan's War in their lists not out of tokenism, but out of a genuine respect and admiration for each work. But no one should get upset when mainstream publications ignore Marvel and DC, and possibly Dark Horse and Image as well. Ask yourself: do you really think that the average person sitting down to write one of these lists for Time or The Onion or whatever is going to hold Rage of the Red Lanterns and Bottomless Belly Button in equal regard? Can you not see the difference in appeal among the types of people who make these sorts of lists? Sure, Rage of the Red Lanterns will outsell Bottomless Belly Button in the short run**, but does that obligate those of us who actually take the time to make these lists to include something by Geoff Johns on our lists?
Are we even obligated to read Geoff Johns' output when making our lists? I would argue pretty strenuously that we aren't, that most of us who think enough about comics to assemble a best of 2008 list probably know by now whether or not we like Geoff Johns' work. To some, this might diminish our expertise, or reveal our subjectivity. This concern is misguided. Certainly, I would not value a list written by someone with a very narrow range of interests, or a very limited familiarity with comics released in 2008. That's why I have criteria for inclusion on the meta-list; I'm not going to take a top 10 list which includes eight superhero comics, Penny Arcade, and something by Jonathan Hickman very seriously.
But we should be realistic. Does everybody who makes a list share your interests and prejudices? You'd have to be very, very naive to expect every list to cater to your tastes. Does every list reflect the same level of expertise? Of course not. Not everyone making a list will be able to afford to buy every comic of interest to them, and they probably won't be able to find every one of these books in the library or a bookstore which permits reading in the cafe. Most of us won't recieve complimentary copies of Kramers Ergot 7, and lots of those folks might not put it on their best of 2008 list because they can't afford to buy a copy for themselves.
I really don't have a problem with that, though. There are a lot of lists to choose from out there. It's only December 11, and I've already found at least a dozen worthy of consideration. And hey, I'm going to do a lot of the work for you by compiling all these lists into one meta-list reflecting scores of different perspectives. The final top 10 probably won't be entirely to your liking, but what's stopping you from making your own top 10? You could make it nothing but superhero comics if you want. I mean, I won't take it seriously, but other people might. It might bother you that your list won't have the same reach as those from major media sources; if so, I guess you'll just have to get over it. Sorry, but that's life.
*Of course, you'd have some people who would consider the inclusion of a Grant Morrison comic as prima facie evidence of pretentiousness. We can probalby dismiss these people as the types who would rank Essential Power Pack as the number one comic of the year, thus establishing that they're not quite ready to sit at the grown-ups' table yet.
**I'm guessing. In the long run, I expect that people will still be reading Bottomless Belly Button years and years after all but the most ardent fanboys have forgotten what a Red Lantern is.
-BONUS TERRIBLE GROSS OUT COVERAGE: For the vast, vast majority of you, this will be the worst thing you see all day. Do you dare click on the link? Please note: I'm not kidding. This is terrible, and you might regret looking at it.
-EXTRA BONUS LINK UPDATE: Right after posting this, I read Tom Spurgeon's review of some undoubtedly terrible comic by some D-list celebrity. I don't know how Tom's going to feel about me saying this, but that's one of the best reviews I've read in months; insightful and very funny. Just wanted to point out my appreciation for it, since Tom doesn't have comments and probably wouldn't publish correspondence saying nothing more than "That was awesome, dude."
As for the others.... Look, the lists you've all seen by now are, generally speaking, the best lists out there at the moment. With maybe one or two exceptions, these new lists fall into one of two categories: lists from well-known sources which kind of suck, or lists from basically unknown sources that don't suck. Okay, there are also a few unknown/suck combinations as well. The biggest gap between name value and quality of thought comes from the Washington Post (scroll down). Their list from last year sucked as well. I'm willing to bet that their lists are comprised entirely of whatever they're sent, and that 90% of what they're sent comes from Dark Horse and DC. Either that or this list is farted out by someone who doesn't have the time/energy/expertise to put into such things. But based on some of the strange choices in 2007, I'd guess the former.
Plus: the first appearance of Buffy on one of these things! Shit, I thought all that was over by now. I suppose this will pop up on a few other lists, especially if Entertainment Weekly bothers to make one this year.
-A few people have shared some thoughts about the process of making lists in the past couple of days, and I agree with very little of what I've read. Undoubtedly the least valuable of these posts comes from Lucas Siegel of the new Blog@Newsarama. I feel sort of responsible for the shit storm that follows in the comics, given that I mockingly linked to the article yesterday (Heidi MacDonald even repeats my description of Siegel's position as "affirmative action for superhero comics"). Really, I'm not sure it merits this much attention in and of itself (as an expression of a larger sentiment, perhaps it does; more on this later). Tom Spurgeon pretty much captures its spirit perfectly in describing it as something "from a Usenet Group in 1996."
But this isn't the first instance of anti-best of list backlash from the new Blog@Newsarama crew. Getting much less attention is this post from Sarah Jaffe, taking the New York Magazine top 10 (or 12) list to task for not including the collected Local. If that's going to be her standard for excellence in these lists, she's going to be sorely disappointed; in my experience compiling these things, very few books show up in more than a small fraction of lists. And from what I've seen so far, the collected Local isn't going to be one of them this year. Why? For one thing, it's a collection of comics previously published from 2005 to 2008. Bloggers and writers for comics-oriented publications tend to ignore these sorts of collections, making them particularly dependent on lists coming from general interest publications. Of the six lists like this I've compiled so far, only NPR includes the collected Local. No comics-focused sources have ranked it yet.
Still, I take Jaffe's comment to be more boosterism than complaint; I think she's more interested in drumming up her readers' interest in the book than anything. I was more disappointed in the comments her post elicited, especially this one by Ryan Higgins:
It’s depressing sometimes that these lists always consist of books that I can’t sell to save my life. Outside of Fables, I stocked a few of these, and not a single one has sold.
I'm not sure what Higgins' point is. If he's bemoaning his inability to sell quality works to his customers, I would think this would be more of a self-deprecating statement. You know, "what does it say about me as a salesman that I can't sell comics which the critical consensus rates as the best of the year." Or maybe, "Boy, our customers suck." That kind of thing. Instead, this seems more in line with Lucas Siegel's position that there are too many "pretentious" choices on these lists, that critics don't have their finger on the pulse of what the comics industry is really about, etc., etc.
This isn't anything new, of course. We've seen countless examples of superhero fan rage at the alleged snobbery of the art/literary comics contingent. I'm finding the superhero people a little touchier lately, though. It used to take statements of outright derision to set them off, but I'm seeing increasingly volcanic reactions to the omission of superhero comics from discussions of what constitutes the "best" in comics. I first noticed this during the Best American Comics 2007 fiasco from last year; it looks like we're seeing it again now.
I can't attribute this trend (assuming it's actually a trend and not a figment of my imagination) to anything with absolute certainty, but I've got some ideas. We see many superhero partisans (perhaps most notably Paul O'Brien) cite the popularity of superhero movies as evidence that superhero comics better reflect mainstream tastes than something like Acme Novelty Library. Somehow this leads to the conclusion that anything purporting to list the "best" comics is somehow flawed if it fails to include superhero comics.
The problem here how you get from the factual statement that the general public likes superhero movies to the questionable conclusion that best of lists/anthologies must include superhero comics. There are at least three assertions one must accept to get from (a) to (b):
1. There are superhero comics from the period in question which are worthy of inclusion in best of lists/anthologies.
2. The aforementioned superhero comics will appeal to the segment of the general public which enjoys superhero movies.
3. Best of lists/anthologies must reflect popular tastes in order to be considered legitimate.
Clearly there are problems with all three assertions. In clarifying his original post, Siegel suggests that most shonen manga somehow qualify as superhero comics. I think this greatly stretches the definition of "superhero" as a genre, but we'll leave that aside. By including things like, presumably, Naruto or Bleach, you can beef up assertion #2: these comics are popular, and they're popular for the same reason movies like Iron Man and The Dark Knight are popular. Again, I've got my doubts about this, but let's put that aside. Does the popularity of these comics necessitate their inclusion in a best of list or anthology?
I don't see how this follows. There are a number of commenters who distrust the idea of best of lists because they overvalue the concepts of objectivity and expertise. In other words, you can't trust most lists because (a) they reflect the list-maker's subjective tastes and (b) it's extremely unlikely that the list-maker will have read every single comic of any merit in any given year. Thus, once can view the inclusion of a couple of superhero comics as evidence that neither of these problems afflict a given list. If a list full of artsy fartsy comics includes one or two Marvel or DC titles, it can provide the illusion that the list-maker has expertise in/appreciation of all areas of comics, even if the only superhero comics (s)he has read all year long were written by Grant Morrison.*
There are, naturally, going to be some people who include Captain America alongside Alan's War in their lists not out of tokenism, but out of a genuine respect and admiration for each work. But no one should get upset when mainstream publications ignore Marvel and DC, and possibly Dark Horse and Image as well. Ask yourself: do you really think that the average person sitting down to write one of these lists for Time or The Onion or whatever is going to hold Rage of the Red Lanterns and Bottomless Belly Button in equal regard? Can you not see the difference in appeal among the types of people who make these sorts of lists? Sure, Rage of the Red Lanterns will outsell Bottomless Belly Button in the short run**, but does that obligate those of us who actually take the time to make these lists to include something by Geoff Johns on our lists?
Are we even obligated to read Geoff Johns' output when making our lists? I would argue pretty strenuously that we aren't, that most of us who think enough about comics to assemble a best of 2008 list probably know by now whether or not we like Geoff Johns' work. To some, this might diminish our expertise, or reveal our subjectivity. This concern is misguided. Certainly, I would not value a list written by someone with a very narrow range of interests, or a very limited familiarity with comics released in 2008. That's why I have criteria for inclusion on the meta-list; I'm not going to take a top 10 list which includes eight superhero comics, Penny Arcade, and something by Jonathan Hickman very seriously.
But we should be realistic. Does everybody who makes a list share your interests and prejudices? You'd have to be very, very naive to expect every list to cater to your tastes. Does every list reflect the same level of expertise? Of course not. Not everyone making a list will be able to afford to buy every comic of interest to them, and they probably won't be able to find every one of these books in the library or a bookstore which permits reading in the cafe. Most of us won't recieve complimentary copies of Kramers Ergot 7, and lots of those folks might not put it on their best of 2008 list because they can't afford to buy a copy for themselves.
I really don't have a problem with that, though. There are a lot of lists to choose from out there. It's only December 11, and I've already found at least a dozen worthy of consideration. And hey, I'm going to do a lot of the work for you by compiling all these lists into one meta-list reflecting scores of different perspectives. The final top 10 probably won't be entirely to your liking, but what's stopping you from making your own top 10? You could make it nothing but superhero comics if you want. I mean, I won't take it seriously, but other people might. It might bother you that your list won't have the same reach as those from major media sources; if so, I guess you'll just have to get over it. Sorry, but that's life.
*Of course, you'd have some people who would consider the inclusion of a Grant Morrison comic as prima facie evidence of pretentiousness. We can probalby dismiss these people as the types who would rank Essential Power Pack as the number one comic of the year, thus establishing that they're not quite ready to sit at the grown-ups' table yet.
**I'm guessing. In the long run, I expect that people will still be reading Bottomless Belly Button years and years after all but the most ardent fanboys have forgotten what a Red Lantern is.
-BONUS TERRIBLE GROSS OUT COVERAGE: For the vast, vast majority of you, this will be the worst thing you see all day. Do you dare click on the link? Please note: I'm not kidding. This is terrible, and you might regret looking at it.
-EXTRA BONUS LINK UPDATE: Right after posting this, I read Tom Spurgeon's review of some undoubtedly terrible comic by some D-list celebrity. I don't know how Tom's going to feel about me saying this, but that's one of the best reviews I've read in months; insightful and very funny. Just wanted to point out my appreciation for it, since Tom doesn't have comments and probably wouldn't publish correspondence saying nothing more than "That was awesome, dude."
Friday, November 7, 2008
I guess it's not too early if you've got connections
So as I'm going back through the stuff I've missed in the last couple of weeks, I see that Amazon and Publishers Weekly have both published their best-of lists for 2008. Lots of stuff on both lists I haven't read yet, but on first glance the PW list looks more attuned to my tastes. I'm now thinking the best perk about writing for a respected publication/website is the opportunity to read things like KE7 before unconnected people like me. Or did it show up at APE? Haven't worked my way through to the APE reports yet. (And yeah, I broke my plans to attend. Sorry, but you know how things are right now.)
Anyway, let me remind everyone once again to send me links to your best of 2008 list(s) so I can start adding and calculating the 2008 meta list. Umbrella Academy is #1 right now, I guess--if this is not to your liking, then make sure to make a list!
Anyway, let me remind everyone once again to send me links to your best of 2008 list(s) so I can start adding and calculating the 2008 meta list. Umbrella Academy is #1 right now, I guess--if this is not to your liking, then make sure to make a list!
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