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#20-21, Best Comics of the Decade...

Submitted by CalamityJon on December 17, 2009 - 12:40

Chicken with Plums
Pantheon Books (Marjane Satrapi) 2006
Wikipedia Article

I know, you’re probably asking “If you're going to pick a Marjane Satrapi book, why not pick Persepolis?” Well, I enjoyed Persepolis, and I think it’s a very important work, but I frankly found this relatively unacknowledged work (although it has a film version in the works, evidently) of artistry, love, loss and depression to be the tighter narrative and the more emotionally evocative. Mind you, I don't want to take anything away from Persepolis - or really any of Satrapi's work, which may vary in affect and quality but which is uniformly worth reading - but I also felt that it was very dependent on lessons learned from David B, where Chicken with Plums possesses much more of the independent voice of the author.

Chicken With Plums

Isaac The Pirate
Comics Lit (Christophe Blain) 2003-present
The very little-known French import has collected the first four chapters of Blain's piracy picaresque, a darkly funny and tumultuous story where the menace both to the deceptively eponymous Isaac is both ominously real in terms physical and moral. It's the illustrations which are the primary strength of the series, expressive chiaroscuro expanses where buildings seem to loom heavy with cat-scratch shadows and figures come up drenched from pools of darkness. The conclusion is still forthcoming, but so far it's one of the most impressive books I've come across this decade.

Isaac the Pirate: To Exotic Lands
Isaac the Pirate: The Capital

So, my list was, in no particular order:

  1. All-Star Superman

  2. Asterios Polyp

  3. American Virgin

  4. The Book of Genesis

  5. The Complete Peanuts

  6. Daredevil Vol 2

  7. Lone Wolf and Cub

  8. The Will Eisner Omnibus

  9. Homunculus

  10. Hellboy

  11. Epileptic

  12. The Golem's Mighty Swing

  13. Blankets

  14. David Boring

  15. Army@Love

  16. Plastic Man

  17. Popeye

  18. Scott Pilgrim

  19. Black Hole

  20. Chicken With Plums

  21. Isaac the Pirate

I had to leave out at least a half-dozen books I'd have loved to included, but nonetheless, there's my list. You may now proceed to yell at me for having dumb choices...