Scan barcode
ericfheiman's review
5.0
After a rather disappointing 2007 edition with remote and myopic selections by Chris Ware, Lynda Barry brings this series back into high quality territory. While not all of her selections are home runs, there are a few so out-of-the-park great that they easily make up for the lesser entries. These selections also highlight the subtle difference between the intensely personal work of both Ware and Barry. Both mine the melancholy of everyday life, but Barry's work is messier, more human and hopeful, Ware's, though flush with controlled virtuosity of form, narrative, and emotion, is instead hermetically sealed, completely devoid of hope. Miraculously, Ware makes it work—-possibly due to the friction between such refined beauty and overt loneliness——but very few others can and that was problem with his 2007 selections: too many pale Ware imitations. Barry is cannier in her choices, rather than looking for imitators, she instead unearths a variety of artists joined only by their emotional honesty and inventive use of narrative.
meghan111's review
2.0
Lynda Barry's introduction is awesome and she discusses her favorite cartoonist Bil Keane of Family Circus. But I've come to realize these anthologies are not for me - rather, they are for people who do not know what kind of comics they like or who are interested in a broad range. Everything I liked in this anthology I had already read elsewhere, and since the style of comics drawing and writing I like is somewhat specific and narrow I'm not open to many new things.
saidtheraina's review
4.0
Out of all the cartoonists who have guest-edited this series so far, I think my taste lines up with Lynda Barry's the most. She included a lot of my favorites, and I did discover a few new. Especially Sarah Oleksyk - SO getting her zines! Good good stuff.
tasharobinson's review
4.0
Reading this in 2020, it feels more like a flashback session than necessarily a collection of indelible comics that will pass the test of time. Some of the selections seem fairly random — like, it was great to see Alison Bechdel in here, but the selection of "Dykes to Watch Out For" strips feel pretty arbitrary and unrelated. And I'd forgotten all about Kaz — it seems like forever since I've read a Kaz strip — but ditto, I have no idea why this particular strips were chosen. Mostly it was a pleasant surprise to be reminded of so many artists who used to be in the Chicago Reader back when it could afford to be a clearinghouse for indie cartoonists.
thegayngelgabriel's review
3.0
3.5. Some very good things, some boring things, a couple artists whose work I hadn't heard of before but enjoyed a lot.
crabbygirl's review
1.0
[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]
i found this anthology when searching for lynda barry stuff last month (she's listed as editor). for every really good segment, there was an equally boring one. and then i couldn't find any of these good leads at the library! so i won't be wasting any more time on anthologies :(
i found this anthology when searching for lynda barry stuff last month (she's listed as editor). for every really good segment, there was an equally boring one. and then i couldn't find any of these good leads at the library! so i won't be wasting any more time on anthologies :(
taylorhousebooks's review
4.0
I only had two problems with this compilation: 1) several of the excerpts, while from excellent works, lost their impact when taken out of context; and 2) the transformations necessary to make all the disparate graphics fit into one format caused several of them to have very tiny print, which is not so good for one going slowly blind, such as myself. Otherwise, I completely loved this book and it has inspired me to read more graphics. I particularly enjoyed Burden by Graham Annable, Mammalogy by Eric Haven, Will and Abe in King of Monster Island by Matt Groening, and Part II The Benders Arrive from The Saga of the Bloody Benders by Rick Geary.
mhall's review
2.0
Lynda Barry's introduction is awesome and she discusses her favorite cartoonist Bil Keane of Family Circus. But I've come to realize these anthologies are not for me - rather, they are for people who do not know what kind of comics they like or who are interested in a broad range. Everything I liked in this anthology I had already read elsewhere, and since the style of comics drawing and writing I like is somewhat specific and narrow I'm not open to many new things.