Not your daddy’s comics

The highest praise for The Best American Comics 2011 is this: It sent this reviewer scurrying to find more of the comics excerpted within, such as Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library #20 and Gabrielle Bell’s hilarious and thought-provoking comic interpretation of Valerie Solanas’ The S.C.U.M. Manifesto. In fact, under Dykes to Watch Out For author Alison Bechdel’s editorial eye, this is one of the most political editions of the series yet; the inclusion of a section of Joe Sacco’s documentary comic on the Palestine-Israel situation, Footnotes in Gaza, guarantees that. There are, of course, the usual suspects: Jaime Hernandez’s Love and Rockets series makes another—worthy—appearance. But there are some interesting surprises as well, like the beautiful “Winter” (excerpted from Refresh Refresh by Danica Novgorodoff, Benjamin Percy and James Ponsoldt), and the concluding piece, “The Ultimate Graphic Novel (in Six Panels)” by David Lasky. It’s more proof that comics are more than just funny papers.