2000s

I have also elected my best of the decade, best of the naughts, best of the oohs, best of the ahhs. Trimmed to five, this list is neither shocking nor necessary. Call it an excuse to put up images on a sinking comics blog.

1. Seven Soldiers by Grant Morrison and many fine artists (2005-6).Thirty issues born to the world in an odd order made me feel the full happy weight of the floppy. Above, J. H. Williams III gives me a face I'll never forget from issue zero.

2. 100% by Paul Pope (2002-3).

Pope's story of Gastro -- exotic dancing for the lovers of digestion -- has many pulsating and moving moments like the one above. See-through pocket, new gun, clenching fist, clenching fist.

3. Eightball #23 by Dan Clowes (2004).

Archaic pop American ennui. Tights. Andy the Death-Ray is our hero. He pops a squirrel. He very majestically cannot sleep.

4. Cecil and Jordan in New York by Gabrielle Bell (2008).

I have spent good time with Bell's collection. The scale of all these smart stories still wows me; the cage above lets you witness an illusion of magnitude.

5. The Fixer by Joe Sacco (2003).

The dizzy story of Neven and Joe, storysellers of Sarajevo. Read it for weird intimacy, for clear-as-mud conflict.

Hands

(From Joe Sacco's The Fixer: A Story from Sarajevo. Click to enlarge.)

Why make this comic, I wonder, after seeing this shaky hand hoping to get down every word. Both panels call out the presence of the reporter: the first his physical presence, the second his mechanical presence, his transcriptional prowess. And there's a third, shadowy presence not represented -- his artisanal presence, his transmutational prowess. After being a "professional," Sacco drew a comic. What can he do with comics that he can't do by refining his prose? He can recreate the furiousness of his own hand and the off-kilter flash of new information. He can poke fun at the cliché that hands are the most challenging part of human anatomy to draw. Hands are the easy part.