So what are the best comics made in any language anywhere?

I'm not familiar enough with his work. Finland isn't exactly the best place to keep up with the comic scene.

I feel that leaving out Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns is a mistake, but then people's tastes do differ.

top marks on Clowes.

One odd thing - where's Donald Duck?

Being an anarcho-socialist myself, I have big problems with Frank Miller's right-wing attitudes and nihilistic violence. I admire Mr. Miller's works for their quality, but I simply cannot bring myself to liking them. Dark Knight Returns is a prime example of this. The Sin City comics are somewhat easier to swallow, because they're more like ordinary crime stories, without the social commentary.

One odd thing - where's Donald Duck?

As I said: one work per author. In my opinion, Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge stories are better than the Donald ones. I might have added Al Taliaferro's Donald strips into a top 100, but not into top 50.

Oh, I completely forgot about Don Rosa! His Donald and Scrooge stories should definitely be in the top 50. My mistake.

I don't know how Corto Maltese is rated... continental comics are another universe to me.

is "Understanding Comics" actually any good?

And he'd be a fool not to say so. Jimmy Corrigan is one of the most beautiful, sad, gut wrenching things I've ever read, in comics or elsewhere.

I got that totally backwards. Time to drop back and have some coffee on the sidelines.

DAMN! I CANNOT READ!

Corto is regarded extremely highly - lots of people I know regard it as the greatest comic work ever - but it's never sold loads, so it's not hugely well known.

and it's very easy to imagine Ware giving the title away to Clowes, since as you mentioned, Ware is almost pathologically self-deprecating in interviews.

though, based on what i remember reading, Ware's vote would probably be Charles Schultz!

* Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron - Daniel Clowes
* Dark Phoinex Saga - Claremont/Bryne/Austin
* I Never Liked You - Chester Brown
* It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken - Seth
* Transformers: Target 2006 - Simon Furman et al.
* Batman: The Killing Joke - Moore/Bolland/Higgins
* Urusei Yatsura - Rumiko Takahashi
* Daddy's Girl - Debbie Drechsler
* Early issues of Gen13
* The Poor Bastard - Joe Matt
* Jim Lee era X-Men
* 1963 series by Image
* Anything by James Kochalka
* Gunsmith Cats - Kenichi Sonoda
* Groo - Sergio Aragones
* Jar of Fools - Jason Lutes
* Death: the Hight Cost of Living - Gaiman/Bachalo

I have a problem with choosing any one thing by Crumb: it all seems like one big life's work, similar to Schulz and Peanuts. (oddly enough, Schulz was a big Crumb fan and one of the financers of Zwigoff's film)

I still can't see the big deal about Dark Knight Returns, honestly.

the guy who wrote "Foxy Grandpa"?

I always had problems with the praise all those revisionist superhero comics got. Sure, they're fun reading for someone who spent his childhood with X-Men, Spiderman etc, but to rate them amongst the best comics ever is to give them more worth than they deserve. I think even Watchmen, which is the best of the bunch, suffers from the fact that you have to familiar with the superhero mythology to understand all the details. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of the reason why Dark Knight Returns et al are rated so high is that they were the among the first mainstream comics in the US to be targeted explicitly to a mature audience. Here in Europe, there'd been adult comics long before that, so it wasn't such a big deal. France had produced a lot of such stuff since at least the seventies, and Britain had 2000AD etc. Also, the superhero thing was never so big here, so adult superhero stories didn't feel that radical. I'm not saying these stories are bad, it's just that they're often rated higher than they should be.

Burglar Bill 1
Lucifer 1-3
Man-Elf 1-5
Morningstar 1: Black Dog
Norman Spittall
St Swithin's Day
Saviour 1-5 (Mark Millar's first comic work)
Saviour Book 1 (collecting 1-5)
The Shadowmen 1-2 (Mark Millar's 2nd title)
Strand 1
Trident Sampler 1-2
Trident 1-8

I have some spares of most, the exceptions being St Swithin's Day, Trident 1 and Norman Spittall (I'm not sure there are copies of this beyond mine and artist Jeremy Banks' copies, but it's hilarious).

I know this is off-topic, but I'm damned if I'm starting a new thread for Trident. I shall return shortly with my list of favourite comics ever.

1. Krazy Kat by George Herriman (especially the Sundays)
2. Popeye by E.C. Segar (especially the dailies)
3. Fantastic Four by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee
4. Lone Wolf & Cub by Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima
5. Peanuts by Charles Schulz
6. Corto Maltese by Hugo Pratt
7. Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson
8. Uncle Scrooge/Donald Duck by Carl Barks
9. The Fourth World by Jack Kirby
10. Howard the Duck by Steve Gerber and some artists
11. Asterix by Rene Goscinny & Albert Uderzo
12. strips by Robert Crumb (earlyish work)
13. The Jungle Book by Harvey Kurtzman
14. Spider-Man by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee
15. Phoenix by Osamu Tezuka
16. Love and Rockets by Gilbert & Jaime Hernandez
17. Two-Fisted Tales & Frontline Combat edited by Harvey Kurtzman
18. Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind by Hiyao Miyazaki
19. The Bash Street Kids by Leo Baxendale
20. ‘Master Race’ by Al Feldstein & Bernie Krigstein from Impact
21. The Defenders by Steve Gerber & Sal Buscema
22. Dr Strange by Steve Ditko & Stan Lee
23. Groo by Sergio Aragones
24. ‘The Case of the Curious Classic’ by Alex Toth in Hot Wheels 5
25. Li’l Abner by Al Capp
26. ‘White Devil,Yellow Devil’ by Bob Kanigher & Alex Toth from a DC war comic
27. Terry & the Pirates by Milton Caniff
28. Goodman Beaver by Harvey Kurtzman
29. strips in Mad by Don Martin
30. Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka
31. JLA by Grant Morrison and some artists
32. Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson
33. Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware
34. Tintin by Herge
35. Polly And Her Pals by Cliff Sterrett
36. Omega the Unknown by Steve Gerber & Jim Mooney
37. Sgt Rock by Bob Kanigher & Joe Kubert
38. The Spirit by Will Eisner
39. Pogo by Walt Kelly
40. Plastic Man by Jack Cole
41. The Flash by Gardner Fox, John Broome & Carmine Infantino
42. Mad edited by Harvey Kurtzman
43. Buddy Bradley stories by Peter Bagge
44. Raw edited by Art Spiegelman & Francoise Mouly
45. Hey! Look by Harvey Kurtzman
46. Thor by Jack Kirby & Stan Lee
47. Enemy Ace by Bob Kanigher & Joe Kubert
48. Thriller by Robert Loren Fleming & Trevor von Eeden
49. If… by Steve Bell
50. Cerebus by Dave Sim (say High Society, Church & State, Jaka’s Story)
51. the last pre-Crisis Superman story by Alan Moore & Curt Swan
52. Eightball by Daniel Clowes
53. 2001 by Jack Kirby
54. Zot! By Scott McCloud
55. Halo Jones by Alan Moore & Ian Gibson
56. Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison & some artists
57. Steve Ditko’s horror strips at Warren
58. Little Lulu by John Stanley
59. Nancy by Ernie Bushmiller
60. Bacchus by Eddie Campbell (the only item in the list in which I had any involvement!)
61. Weirdo edited by Robert Crumb
62. Hercules Amongst The North Americans by Mark Marek
63. Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray
64. Gregory by Mark Hempel
65. Maus by Art Spiegelman
66. Kamui by Sanpei Shirato
67. Jimbo by Gary Panter
68. Bringing Up Father by George McManus
69. Giuseppe Bergman albums by Milo Manara
70. Agony by Mark Beyer
71. Daredevil by Frank Miller
72. Animal Man by Grant Morrison & Chas Truog
73. Steve Canyon by Milton Caniff
74. French magazine A Suivre
75. Blueberry by Jean-Michel Charlier & Jean-Paul Giraud (aka Moebius)

I vacillated over The Far Side and Giles, both of which would have had high entries had I not decided that they didn’t qualify, as they were almost always single-panel gags. There are people by whom I wish I’d been able to read much more – Noel Sickles, Roy Crane and Alberto Brecchia spring to mind. I’m sure they’d have made the list. The numbering is approximate – I’m not sure of any position after the first two – so I don’t want to argue whether my #43 is better than #44, but I’m happy for as much argument as you like in general. I promise not to claim that my professional expertise (which is a thing of the past anyway) makes me ‘right’.

But first: Tuomas, I'm surprised you put Martha Washington on the list, since it seemed to me a pretty baldfaced rip off of Watchmen. (Frank sez, "Hey Alan! I even nicked your artist!") It seemed much less thought out and superficial than Watchmen -- this coming from a huge Miller fan who doesn't think much of Watchmen.

And as for DKR -- a lot's been said about FM's fascism, and frankly (haha), I don't care a whit. He's a master stylist, which overwhelms any political agenda DKR or any other FM work pushes. Two best examples: when Superman's emaciated from the bomb, FM's prose is downright rhapsodic; all of Batman: Year One -- he shows how amazing he could be when he restrains himself. He also used to be one of the funniest writers in spandex comics.

I also love his art, the uglier the better. All the little scraggly lines of the cover of DKR#3, the panel where Marv kicks in a squad car's windshield -- stuff that would not see the light of day in your run of the mill mainstream comic. I love how crazy and ugly it is in an unironic way.

1. DKR - FM, Klaus Janson
2. Goodbye Chunky Rice - Craig Thompson (I was literally crying through the entirety of this)
3. Batman: Year one - you know who + Dave Mazzucchelli
4. Cages - Dave McKean
5. Hellboy - Mike Mignola
6. Queen & Country - Greg Rucka, et al
7. X-Force/X-Statix - Peter Milligan, Mike Allred
8. Bone - Jeff Smith
9. "The Wizard and the Snake" - Katie Mignola, Mike Mignola
10. Volcanic Revolver - Scott Morse

11. Sin City - FM
12. Blade of the Immortal - Hiroaki Samura
13. Sandman: The Dream Hunters - Neil Gaiman, Yoshitaka Amano
14. Wonder Woman: the Hiketeia - Greg Rucka et al
15. "Barnyard Animals" - Craig Thompson
16. Kabuki: Circle of Blood - David Mack
17. Elektra: Assassin - FM, Bill Sienkiewicz
18. The Amazing Screw On Head - Mignola
19. Daredevil - Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Dave Mazzucchelli
20. Elektra & Wolverine: The Redeemer - Rucka, Yoshitaka Amano

I love my tights.
I am also American and anything before 1986 doesn't exist.

I don't think Miller is a Fascist (why would he campaign against censorship, then?), I think he's a right-wing libertarian. And as I said, I don't mind the obvious superhero vigilantism if the stories are light-weight in tone (that's the same reason I can tolerate the gratuitious violence in Quentin Tarantino's films), but if the work is supposed to be "serious" and "thought-provoking", well, the thought it provokes in me is "this guy's an asshole". Miller is a master stylist, yes, and that's why I still like those of his works where his agenda doesn't show so clearly (Give Me Liberty, the first couple of Sin City stories, Elektra Assassin etc).

I am also American and anything before 1986 doesn't exist.

This attitude I find kinda weird. How can you call yourself a comics fan, if you're ignorant to the work of Hergé, Bilal, Pratt, Bretécher, König, Coscinny, Tezuka etc? It's like a movie buff who only watches Hollywood flicks that were made after the seventies. Am I correct if I assume that the American comic scene is very much superhero- and sci-fi -oriented, and European or Japanese quality comics are hard to come by? I'm not sure if Ralf König's work has even been translated into English, but the rest on my you can sure find in the US too.

Because he likes comics?

51) Concrete by Paul Chadwick
52) Socker-Conny by Joakim Pirinen
53) Les meres by Claire Bretécher
54) Der bewegte Mann by Ralf König
55) V for Vendetta by Alan Moore & David Lloyd
56) Trazo de tiza by Miguelanxo Prado
57) Caricature by Daniel Clowes
58) The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot
59) Partie de chasse by Enki Bilal & Pierre Christin
60) Over the Hedge by Michael Fry and T. Lewis

61) Sin City 1 by Frank Miller
62) Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman, Chris Bachalo & Mark Buckingham
63) Kramppeja ja nyrjähdyksiä by Pauli Kallio & various
64) Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind by Hayao Miyazaki
65) The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
66) To the Heart of the Storm by Will Eisner
67) Mickey Mouse by Floyd Gottfredson
68) Triple-X by Arnold and Jacob Pander
69) Iznogoud by René Coscinny & Tabary
70) L’uomo alla finestra by Lorenxo Mattotti & Lilia Ambrosi

71) Pixy by Max Andersson
72) I Never Liked You by Chester Brown
73) Filemon by Fred
74) Nemesis the Warlock by Pat Mills & various
75) Dilbert by Scott Adams
76) Spirou by André Franquin & various
77) Tranches de vie by Gérard Lauzier
78) Domu by Katsuhiro Otomo
79) Peter Pank by Max
80) It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken by Seth

81) The Books of Magic by John Ney Rieber & various
82) Banana Fish by Akimi Yoshida
83) Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison, Philip Bond & D’Israeli
84) Starman by James Robinson & various
85) Valhalla by Peter Madsen & various
86) Donald Duck by Al Taliaferro & Bob Carp
87) Groo by Sergio Aragones
88) Longshot by Ann Nocenti, Arthur Adams & Whilce Portacio
89) Ernie by Bud Crace
90) Blueberry by Jean-Michel Charlier & Jean Giraud

91) Joe’s Bar by Jose Munoz & Carlos Sampayo
92) La Belette by Didier Comes
93) Un été indien by Hugo Pratt & Milo Manara
94) Robotman by Jim Meddick
95) Rails by David Chauvel & Fred Simon
96) Blues by Robert Crumb
97) Jeff Hawke by Sydney Jordan
98) Judge Dredd by John Wagner & various
99) Mutts by Patrick McDonnell
100) Arzach by Moebius

And yes, I think that my tastes are pretty indicative of American mainstream comics at least from a generic standpoint. I don't dig on the truly indie stuff (stuff from Oni Press is as far in that direction that I'll willingly go) because 95% of the time, I want physical action, whether it's in spandex or not. (For the same reason, that's why so many foreign writers are not on my radar.) Batman beats arty drama.

I also have issues with art. Either what's out there is suffused with Crumbesque grotesqueries that are simply uncomfortable for me to see, or it looks too old-school cartoony for me to take seriously. I know how utterly stereotypcial American I'm being, but at this point I'm having sufficient payoff from the likes of Rucka, rereading old FM DD, ranting and raving about Sienkiewicz-style art that I don't feel compelled to go beyond superheroes for the nonce. I expect, as with my tastes for most things, I'll move on eventually, but not now.

As far as availibility, manga are easy to come by. I'm not sure about Euro stuff, simply cos like I said, I don't pay attention.

And back to defending myself. I haven't had much time in comics, def. compared to other ppl here, as evinced by the fact that I only had 20 entries in my favorites list. I only started to become a regular consumer about 3 or so years ago, so naturally I've gravitated towards spandex.

I feel totally twee saying this, but are there any good collections of this out there? I stumbled on a couple of these stories in a big book of old comics at my college library and they were g-r-a-t-e!

I can't think of any disappointing plot twist for the last nine issues that he wouldn't do.