The Best American Comics 2007

A good overview, with some of the usual suspects. I was most impressed with Alison Bechdel (reminding me just how amazing Fun Home really is), Lynda Barry, Gabrielle Bell, Kevin Huizenga, Ben Katchor, and Dan Zettwoch. Robert Crumb (please, nothing by his daughter), Vanessa Davis, and Sammy Harkham were also OK. I still cannot get the attraction of Gil Hernandez, and Kim Dietch and the wanky "experimental" strips of C.F. and Paper Rad (sigh) were just odd.

Anthologies and collections are always a gamble, and this one was pretty hit-and-miss for me. I borrowed it from the library because it came up in a search for Alison Bechdel books. Some of the comics in it were cute, some were thought-provoking, some were weird, some were very disturbing, some gave me a literal headache.

I had an issue with the end notes; they were oddly disorganized, and they all ran together. I'm sure the editor was worried about space, but I think they could have put one empty line in between each end note to make it a bit easier on the reader; they could have put them in order, too.

It was a quick read, and parts of it were great, but I'll never reread it.

Really good collection of comics, some stand out writers were Vanessa Davis, Gabrielle Bell, Jeffrey Brown, Ron Rege Jr., Miriam Katin, Gilbert Hernandez, Kim Deith, Anders Nilsen, and Charles burns. Everyone else included in the anthology we also very talented: Jonathan Bennett, David Heatley, Kevin Huizenga, Sammy Harkman, Ben Katchor, C.F, Tim Hensley, Seth, John Porcellino, Alaine Crumb, Sophie Crumb, C. Tyler, Linda Barry, Lauren Weinstein, Gary Panter, Ivan Brunetti, Paper Rad, Dan Zettwoch, and Anders Nielson

Check out the website for the Best Comics series for reviews, contributors, and previews.Not currently available at Teton County Library, but ask to borrow it from another library!