Top 100 comics of all time.

No Kirby though?

Can't complain about the #1 of course.

The top three could actually be in any order. I eventually picked Tintin because it was one of my first loves among comics; Corto Maltese and Krazy Kat came later.

By the way, are there any English translations of Ralf König's work available? If not, it's a pity, because he's one of the best contemporary comic writers/artists in Europe.

IMHO dull but worthy is the mark of the absolute worst comic. It makes me think of educational comics.

Never really liked Tin Tin at all, always liked Asterix better. Anyway, glad to see Death, Groo and I Never Liked You in there. I think my list would be very different, maybe I'll do a top 25, but I'll have to get all my comics together, so maybe at the weekend...:)

what are the dull-but-worthy ones, tom? this board could use a good argument!

4) Peanuts by Charles Schulz
6) Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
14) A Small Killing by Alan Moore and Oscar Zarate
24) Give Me Liberty by Frank Miller and Dave Gibbons
25) Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
51) Concrete by Paul Chadwick

RUB: (or at least "Definitely not one of the 100 best comics ever)

20) Preacher by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
36) Tales of the Beanworld by Larry Marder
40) Black Orchid by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean
58) The Adventures of Luther Arkwright by Bryan Talbot
61) Sin City 1 by Frank Miller
62) Death: The High Cost of Living by Neil Gaiman, Chris Bachalo & Mark Buckingham
81) The Books of Magic by John Ney Rieber & various
83) Kill Your Boyfriend by Grant Morrison, Philip Bond & D’Israeli
84) Starman by James Robinson & various
100) Arzach by Moebius (if this is the one I'm thinking of)

I think your RUB ones are most of the ones that I actually know from that list (except for the American mainstream strips obv.).

Actually come to think of it I DIDN'T like "Vertigo" much, what I liked were the various odd books DC was doing and the big umbrella branding harmed them I think.

I could easily take the "rub" titles off and replace them with Finnish/European alternative comics I like just as much, but few of you would've probably even heard of such titles. I gather names like Joakim Pirinen or Ralf König or Katja Tukiainen mean little to you, simply because they aren't (widely) available in English.

One thing I can't understand, however, is you calling Calvin & Hobbes "dull-but-worthy". Care to elaborate on that?

You might actually be surprised when you actually read them (there were three excellent reprints collections of his DC work a few years ago: Fourth World, Mister Miracle and Forever People). He has an imagination second to none, but his dialogue is terrible, and the actual people depicted in the genre-defining panel compositions are ill-drawn and samey. Which is why I never warmed to the art of John Byrne, so if you can stand that, you can stand this.

The top 20 still holds, except that "Preacher" probably shouldn't be there. Replace it with "Alack Sinner" or "Concrete" or "Socker-Conny".

Giant scorpions aside, of course.

Tom, don't take this wrong, but I realized this about you long before last night!

Oh dear, oh dear. What if someone *wants* to do more than comics that stay at their "station"? What is that station, anyway? If you look at my top 20, almost every title there has risen above the "entertainment" status usually reserved for comics, and this has mostly been a conscious act on the part of the creators. Are all these comics merely strokes of luck, or do you think they're all rubbish?

First of all, does art always need to be entertaining? Secondly, I'd argue that with the first three titles, their creators were quite consciously doing something more than entertainment, even though entertainment was clearly their major purpose. Barks' case is a different one, he never probably rated himself as an artist; I'm not saying you can't do great comics anyway, though - Barks certainly did.

What about the other 16 titles in my top 20 (you can replace Preacher with Alack Sinner)? Are they all pretentious crap, people trying to do with comics something you shouldn't do?

I'm not touching that 'above its station' thing without a pint in my hand. It's the sort of comment that needs a long reasoned debate in the proper context i.e. the pub.

Maybe if I backtracked a little and said "I usually like comics best when...." instead of "comics ARE...". Also I wouldn't use the word 'pretentious'. But then I wouldn't use the word 'above' like Tuomas does either.

In terms of Tuomas' top 20 there are - as detailed upthread - a few things on it that I don't like, several that I don't know, three or four that might make my own top 20 (sometimes I love Krazy Kat, sometimes I find it insufferable, depending on mood). A lot of the stuff I do like I tend to see as entertainment, or as 'entertainment plus', comics which do other things than entertain in the same way as a car with a terrific sound system does other things than drive (i.e. it's still a car).

Does art have to be entertaining? Well, what does 'entertaining' mean? Diverting - something that captures the attention (and imagination)? Sounds good to me. Pleasing and amusing? Well, I like that, but art doesn't have to be it. I think some art that sets itself against pleasing an imagined audience lands in trouble by thinking that the mere rejection of 'entertainment' is content enough, but that's not a problem that affects any of Tuomas' list.

I think if you're considering artform X as a whole there are two questions you might ask - "what can X do?" and "what is X best at?". A what-it-can-do list will probably feature lots of examples of what-it's-best-at, and a what-it's-best-at list will accidentally show off quite a lot of what-it-can-do. On ILM I tend to pimp for a what-it-can-do approach because ILM's answer to the other question often horrifies me. On ILC my head tells me that Corto Maltese, Ghost World, A Life Force, and Stuck Rubber Baby are wonders of characterisation and craft which expand the possibilities of the medium. My heart on the other hand tells me that neither they, nor anything very much else, gives me what I get from the giant scorpions.)

(There's another factor too, which is that the kind of affect I get from say A Small Killing, I get more, and more satisfyingly, from prose. There's a class of 'graphic novel' where the word 'graphic' works like the word 'special' in 'special olympics'. Very few of these are on Tuomas' list, though.)

Tuomas likes genius, I like scenius. ;)

LIES, WRONGNESS!

things i like abt tuomas's old list: high rating of some favorites of mine, overall variety of choices.

things i dislike: no kirby! no kurtzman! no ditko! too many bland newspaper strips! jaime and no gilbert! no segar! and, um, gaiman.

As for Kurtzmann, Kirby, Ditko, and Segar, I simply haven't read enough of them to include them on the list. I have read some of the sixties Fantastic Four and Spider-Man stories by Kirby and Ditko, but they didnät make that big an impression on me. Gilbert Hernandez is on the list, and as for Gaiman, I'm not really a big fan of his (that's there's no Sandman on the list), but I did like Black Orchid a lot when I read it. I haven't reread it in years though, a reappraisal might be needed.

Have the adventures of Valérian & Laureline ever been translated into English?

oops, sorry!

not familiar with valerian and laureline. i'd like to see the moomin comics reprinted in english, but that seems unlikely considering the books aren't too popular over here.

Yes. NBM released seven or eight albums plus a mini-series of Ballad Of The Salt Sea. Sadly, I suspect these are long out of print.

"Ballad of the Salt Sea" is the first Corto Maltese story, and it's good place to start the series, though it's not exactly the best of them (it lacks some of the magical realism of the later stories).

monsieur jean has been translated and has appeared in a few of those drawn and quarterly annuals.

Also, many of the worst comics I ever read - in very much the same way that I loathe ELP, for instance - were European, especially French. It may be that now this is less of a drawback than in the '80s when I first started reading lots of European comics.