The Comics Journal's top 100 comics of the century - S and D

Ah, I see you've fallen for the McCloud Fallacy Of Single-Panel Comics.

I'd agree that Pogo and Feiffer are overrated on that list; I haven't read enough Nemo to judge, and I don't know anything about 9. But you think Maus is overrated? Yes it's almost as obvious a chioce as Krazy Kat for top 10 inclusion but what's your specific beef with it? I'm curious.

He doesn't have to have a specific beef with it to consider it good-but-ovverrated. It was one in a long line of "Finally! Comic Books have Grown Up!" books when it was released.

I do think there is a meaningful and useful distinction between single panel gags and comics, and I think that might account for Larson not getting in - otherwise it's just stupidity.

I do think Maus was very good, but I think people were overly impressed simply because a comic dealt with such issues. It's the old performing dog thing. That is unfair, but I don't think it has any of the formal and experimental interest of a lot of Spiegelman's best work. I may also react against it because when I interviewed him he was very inclined to use the "but it's the Holocaust! How dare you!" stratagem against any criticism. I think its use of animals has very severe problems. I would certainly have it in my 100, but far lower than fourth place.

Wasn't Dennis the Menace a single panel, too?

Dennis the Menace was a strip, Family Circus was the single panel one

but there are a number of single panel things up there, herblock's editorial cartoons, most of the New Yorker cartoons so don't understand the reason for leaving Larson out

Spiegleman is a testy old fuck, you're right. But in a good way, I thought.

For not unobvious reasons, I vote Tintin in Tibet.

I second that. In my opinion, Tintin is the best comic, period (Krazy Kat being the second best). And Tintin in Tibet perhaps the most moving of all the Tintin albums, so the good captain is right.

I didn't realise that there were single panel cartoons in there (the items in question haven't come over here, that I've noticed). That means that stupidity is the only excuse for excluding Larson.

If the Far Side should be included, so should Dilbert. At least the latter has characters and plots...

Dennis the Menace started as a strip but became a single-panel later

yeah, i got confused after my earlier post beacuse I thought I could picture both - but NYorker cartoons etc still stand as single panel pieces

Far Side should be banished for using a mime joke.

The adaptation of _City of Glass_ is brilliant, imho. Highly recommended for any Paul Auster or comic fans. Great realization of story in the medium.

I heartly second that.

I have to object slightly to Bill Mauldin's inclusion for his "Willie and Joe" cartoons from WWII. While he was the best front-line cartoonist of the war, his cartoons from the years immediately following the war take on much more controversial subjects, and I would rather see him listed for those, or just listed as an artist in general. I put some scans from that period up for the bookstore I work for: http://atlasbowerbooks.com/mauldin.html