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a meme for me
Sep. 28th, 2008 05:36 pm.
This came from The Comics Reporter (linked from bOINGbOING). Reading it, I was struck by how much overlap there was between the writer's tastes and my collection. At the end, the writer had the idea of making a meme of the list, bolding what one has, leaving unbolded the ones one doesn't have, italicizing the ones we don't have enough of, and underlining the ones that maybe shouldn't be on the list.
1. Something From The ACME Novelty Library
2. A Complete Run Of Arcade
3. Any Number Of Mini-Comics
4. At Least One Pogo Book From The 1950s
5. A Barnaby Collection
6. Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary
7. As Many Issues of RAW as You Can Place Your Hands On
8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics
9. A Suite of Modern Literary Graphic Novels
10. Several Tintin Albums
11. A Smattering Of Treasury Editions Or Similarly Oversized Books
12. Several Significant Runs of Alternative Comic Book Series
13. A Few Early Comic Strip Collections To Your Taste
14. Several "Indy Comics" From Their Heyday
15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books
16. At Least One Comic That Failed to Finish The Way It Planned To
17. Some Osamu Tezuka
18. The Entire Run Of At Least One Manga Series
19. One Or Two 1970s Doonesbury Collections
20. At Least One Saul Steinberg Hardcover
21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped
22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can't Explain To Anyone Else
23. At Least One Woodcut Novel
24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand
25. Maus
26. A Significant Sample of R. Crumb's Sketchbooks
27. The original edition of Sick, Sick, Sick. (What I have is an early but not original edition paperback. I think he's just bragging.)
28. The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics
29. Several copies of MAD
30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books
31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books
32. A You're-Too-High-To-Tell Amount of Underground Comix
33. Some Calvin and Hobbes
34. Some Love and Rockets
35. The Marvel Benefit Issue Of Coober Skeber
36. A Few Comics Not In Your Native Tongue
37. A Nice Stack of Jack Chick Comics
38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody's Kid
39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics
40. A Comic You Made Yourself (the comics I did in junior high are all gone, but I've done more since)
41. A Few Comics About Comics
42. A Run Of Yummy Fur
43. Some Frank Miller Comics
44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books
45. A Few Great Comics Short Stories
46. A Tijuana Bible
47. Some Weirdo
48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres
49. An Editorial Cartoonist's Collection or Two
50. A Few Collections From New Yorker Cartoonists
Of course, anything I don't have doesn't belong on any serious list. Haf-kaff. He offered to let people make suggestions for things they'd put on there, as long as they take one off for each one they add. That gives me about six, except I'll say that two of them are probably my own fault and just suggest four. I'll say "anything by Harvey Kurtzman" and show Executive's Comic Book for the visual. And I'll throw in VIZ, the rude, vulgar British comic magazine which embodies the logical culmination of over a century of dysfunctional characters -- all monomaniacs who live pointless lives surmounted by unrelated puns in the last panel. And my visual example would be a "Billy the Fish" strip to be named later... or maybe "Zip O'Lightning," one of the most cruelly hilarious one-shot strips ever. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is a case unto itself, a self-standing series (and a couple of spinoffs) about all-too-human agents who punch a time clock and go risk their lives using devices they don't understand themselves. Collections of 1950s panel gags from magazines are full of great stuff (including many appearances by artists who would soon become legends of comic strips, like Mort Walker and Johnny Hart) -- I'd probably illustrate this with one of those collections from "True, the Man's Magazine" that brought so many great VIP cartoons to my attention. He should have had Herbie in there, too, a comic whose neatly drafted buttoned-down artwork by Ogden Whitney only made it even more dadaistic. That's five. Deal with it.
Of course, I'll think of other things I should have said, but I'm going to stop. Now.
Wait a second. Hang on.
There. Now I'm stopping.
.
This came from The Comics Reporter (linked from bOINGbOING). Reading it, I was struck by how much overlap there was between the writer's tastes and my collection. At the end, the writer had the idea of making a meme of the list, bolding what one has, leaving unbolded the ones one doesn't have, italicizing the ones we don't have enough of, and underlining the ones that maybe shouldn't be on the list.
1. Something From The ACME Novelty Library
2. A Complete Run Of Arcade
3. Any Number Of Mini-Comics
4. At Least One Pogo Book From The 1950s
5. A Barnaby Collection
6. Binky Brown and the Holy Virgin Mary
7. As Many Issues of RAW as You Can Place Your Hands On
8. A Little Stack of Archie Comics
9. A Suite of Modern Literary Graphic Novels
10. Several Tintin Albums
11. A Smattering Of Treasury Editions Or Similarly Oversized Books
12. Several Significant Runs of Alternative Comic Book Series
13. A Few Early Comic Strip Collections To Your Taste
14. Several "Indy Comics" From Their Heyday
15. At Least One Comic Book From When You First Started Reading Comic Books
16. At Least One Comic That Failed to Finish The Way It Planned To
17. Some Osamu Tezuka
18. The Entire Run Of At Least One Manga Series
19. One Or Two 1970s Doonesbury Collections
20. At Least One Saul Steinberg Hardcover
21. One Run of A Comic Strip That You Yourself Have Clipped
22. A Selection of Comics That Interest You That You Can't Explain To Anyone Else
23. At Least One Woodcut Novel
24. As Much Peanuts As You Can Stand
25. Maus
26. A Significant Sample of R. Crumb's Sketchbooks
27. The original edition of Sick, Sick, Sick. (What I have is an early but not original edition paperback. I think he's just bragging.)
28. The Smithsonian Collection Of Newspaper Comics
29. Several copies of MAD
30. A stack of Jack Kirby 1970s Comic Books
31. More than a few Stan Lee/Jack Kirby 1960s Marvel Comic Books
32. A You're-Too-High-To-Tell Amount of Underground Comix
33. Some Calvin and Hobbes
34. Some Love and Rockets
35. The Marvel Benefit Issue Of Coober Skeber
36. A Few Comics Not In Your Native Tongue
37. A Nice Stack of Jack Chick Comics
38. A Stack of Comics You Can Hand To Anybody's Kid
39. At Least A Few Alan Moore Comics
40. A Comic You Made Yourself (the comics I did in junior high are all gone, but I've done more since)
41. A Few Comics About Comics
42. A Run Of Yummy Fur
43. Some Frank Miller Comics
44. Several Lee/Ditko/Romita Amazing Spider-Man Comic Books
45. A Few Great Comics Short Stories
46. A Tijuana Bible
47. Some Weirdo
48. An Array Of Comics In Various Non-Superhero Genres
49. An Editorial Cartoonist's Collection or Two
50. A Few Collections From New Yorker Cartoonists
Of course, anything I don't have doesn't belong on any serious list. Haf-kaff. He offered to let people make suggestions for things they'd put on there, as long as they take one off for each one they add. That gives me about six, except I'll say that two of them are probably my own fault and just suggest four. I'll say "anything by Harvey Kurtzman" and show Executive's Comic Book for the visual. And I'll throw in VIZ, the rude, vulgar British comic magazine which embodies the logical culmination of over a century of dysfunctional characters -- all monomaniacs who live pointless lives surmounted by unrelated puns in the last panel. And my visual example would be a "Billy the Fish" strip to be named later... or maybe "Zip O'Lightning," one of the most cruelly hilarious one-shot strips ever. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents is a case unto itself, a self-standing series (and a couple of spinoffs) about all-too-human agents who punch a time clock and go risk their lives using devices they don't understand themselves. Collections of 1950s panel gags from magazines are full of great stuff (including many appearances by artists who would soon become legends of comic strips, like Mort Walker and Johnny Hart) -- I'd probably illustrate this with one of those collections from "True, the Man's Magazine" that brought so many great VIP cartoons to my attention. He should have had Herbie in there, too, a comic whose neatly drafted buttoned-down artwork by Ogden Whitney only made it even more dadaistic. That's five. Deal with it.
Of course, I'll think of other things I should have said, but I'm going to stop. Now.
Wait a second. Hang on.
There. Now I'm stopping.
.
