TOP 10 COMICS (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

I’ve ranked my Top 10 Comics, but comics are just too prolific to be confined to a mere top ten or even my usual list of twenty special mentions.

Instead, I have two lists for special mentions – the first for comics from 2000 AD, the British weekly SF anthology comic that is my comic of choice for regular reading, and the second for comics from everyone else.

This is the latter – for comics that I enjoyed or are an enduring influence on me from publishers other than 2000 AD’s Rebellion, including self-published webcomics.

 

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

 

 

(1) MAD (1952 – PRESENT)

 

What, me worry?

Ah – Alfred E. Neuman with his iconic gap tooth grin and catchphrase as Mad Magazine’s fictional mascot and cover boy. According to Wikipedia, he actually preceded Mad as a visual image in advertisements and a presidential campaign postcard for Roosevelt, although the magazine named him and converted his original appearance as an idiotic figure to a more mischievous devil-may-care trickster – “someone who can maintain a sense of humor while the world is collapsing around him”. Amusingly – given his origins from a presidential campaign postcard – Mad Magazine has proffered him periodically as a joke presidential candidate from 1956 onwards with the slogan “You could do a lot worse…and always have!”

I was raised on Mad. Indeed, it was hereditary – I inherited it from my mother, who had classic collections of Mad from when she was a teenager and passed them on to me when I was a teenager. (I’m not too sure her parents – my grandparents – were impressed by this subversive publication – they were pretty straightlaced). And it has been a huge influence on my sense of humor and worldview ever since, mirroring its wider influence on parody and satire in popular culture. If you want to understand me, know that Mad Magazine is etched deep within my psyche (paired with Catch-22 and as part of an eclectic kaleidoscope with The Devil’s Dictionary and TV Tropes):

 

The film and television parodies – particularly as drawn by Mort Drucker, possibly the finest caricaturist ever (sadly passed away on 9 April 2020).

 

Spy vs Spy! Featuring the titular literal black and white Cold War-eque spies (drawn as, ah, bird-like people things?) outwitting each other with traps within traps

 

Don Martin – Mad’s Maddest Artist! And his recurring Fonebone character!

 

Dan Berg and his “The Lighter Side of” slice of life cartoons!

 

Sergio Aragones – with his “A Mad Look At’ recurring features and his marginal doodles (or “Drawn Out Dramas”)!

 

The classic Mad Fold-Ins!

 

And so on. Nothing was sacred for Mad’s subversive satire and sense of humor – sacred cows make the best hamburger – “Mad’s satiric net was cast wide. The magazine often featured parodies of ongoing American culture, including advertising campaigns, the nuclear family, the media, big business, education and publishing. In the 1960s and beyond, it satirized such burgeoning topics as the sexual revolution, hippies, the generation gap, psychoanalysis, gun politics, pollution, the Vietnam War and recreational drug use”.

Robert Boyd from the Los Angeles Times summed up Mad Magazine for me as well as himself and other fans, with the apt line “All I really need to know I learned from Mad magazine” – “Plenty of it went right over my head, of course, but that’s part of what made it attractive and valuable. Things that go over your head can make you raise your head a little higher. The magazine instilled in me a habit of mind, a way of thinking about a world rife with false fronts, small print, deceptive ads, booby traps, treacherous language, double standards, half truths, subliminal pitches and product placements; it warned me that I was often merely the target of people who claimed to be my friend; it prompted me to mistrust authority, to read between the lines, to take nothing at face value, to see patterns in the often shoddy construction of movies and TV shows; and it got me to think critically in a way that few actual humans charged with my care ever bothered to.”

And it forever tainted the way I view films and television – much as it did critic Roger Ebert:

“I learned to be a movie critic by reading Mad magazine … Mad’s parodies made me aware of the machine inside the skin—of the way a movie might look original on the outside, while inside it was just recycling the same old dumb formulas. I did not read the magazine, I plundered it for clues to the universe”.

 

 

 

 

(2) RENE GOSCINNY & ALBERT UDERZO –

ASTERIX (1959-1979 – I’m only counting the ones written by both Goscinny and Uderzo up to Asterix in Belgium, the 24th volume in the series)

 

“The year is 50 B.C. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium…”

These Romans are crazy!

Asterix is the original source of my enduring love of comics – and my enduring fascination with the Roman Empire in classical or ancient history. It wouldn’t quite be true to say everything I know about the Roman world I learned from Asterix comics – as those comics inspired me to read more historical books on the Roman Empire and ancient history – but you could genuinely learn a lot about the Roman Empire from them.

The basic premise is stated in the above introduction to each comic, accompanied by the famous map with a magnifying glass held up to show the titular protagonist’s village. (Asterix is also where I learned about the battle of Alesia, in which Julius Caesar defeated the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix and conquered Gaul – a detail that recurs in a number of comics). This small but plucky village has withstood the vast numerical and military superiority of the Roman Empire by virtue of a magic potion that bestows superhuman strength brewed by its resident druid.

Each comic then introduced the major dramatis personae from the village – foremost among them our small but plucky titular protagonist Asterix, but also his generously proportioned fellow protagonist Obelix (who always has superhuman strength because he fell in a cauldron of magic potion as a baby), the aforementioned druid Getafix, village chieftain Vitalstatistix and ill-tuned bard Cacofonix. Oh – and Obelix’s cute dog Dogmatix. As you can tell, the names of Gauls in the comic had humorous puns or plays on the suffix “-ix” – the Romans similarly with “us” and so on with other groups within the Empire. That was indicative of the general wordplay and puns in dialogue as well as visual gags that made each comic a delight – “part of the appeal of the series is probably the variety of humor, which includes slapstick fight scenes, plenty of wordplay, thinly-veiled social commentary, and Iron Age and Roman antiquity versions of just about every European (and beyond) stereotype you can imagine.

I must admit to having a soft spot for the Romans, even though they were generally the antagonists – although perhaps not quite to the point of rooting for the Empire, as our protagonist and his village were just too damn charming. Generally the Romans weren’t cast as evil villains – indeed the hapless legionaries in the camps surrounding the village strove to serve out their time by quietly trying to avoid any contact with the Gauls – although they could also be effective antagonists in their schemes to conquer or undermine the village. And it helped that the Romans were also typically lovable idiots – indeed like almost everyone else in the comic, including the protagonist villagers themselves, except of course for Asterix, Getafix and flashes of brilliance among other characters (Gauls or otherwise). Interestingly, one character not played as an idiot – indeed, played as a worthy adversary – was Caesar himself.

I also have to admit to a soft spot – widely shared by other fans – for the cameo appearances by the recurring band of small but persistently unlucky pirates, a parody of another comic series Barbe-Rouge (Redbeard) – unlucky, that is, in persistently encountering our protagonist duo, the point that they would desperately try to avoid “the Gauls”, even sinking their own ship.

The series was also distinguished by some of the best translations in comics ever – from the original French (of course) by writer Rene Goscinny – as well as some of the best caricaturist art from artist Albert Uderzo. Goscinny sadly died in 1977 and Uderzo took over the writing as well, although not quite with the same superb quality of writing in the eyes of fans such as myself – until he too sadly passed away only in March 2020.

 

RATING: S-TIER (GOD-TIER – OR IS THAT TOUTATIS TIER?)

 

 

 

 

(3) BILL WATTERSON –

CALVIN & HOBBES (1985-1995)

 

Goddamn I love that tiger!

 

“One of the most (maybe the most) beloved newspaper comics of all time, that influenced, changed and thrilled an entire generation, all drawn and written by one man — Bill Watterson…Watterson reminded us that newspaper comics don’t have to be bland, crude drawings, funny animals can have deeper personalities and insights in life, and that it was still possible for a strip to successfully explore philosophical themes without feeling tacked on. And yes, comics about children can still be great”.

Also (as noted by TV Tropes) – unpredictable panel layouts, surreal nature, childhood fantasy elements, lush art, adventure, vivid characterization, satire, classic cartoon slapstick and a gently comedic look at the hard truths of life.

Calvin is a precocious 6-year-old, who lives in rich world of imagination – personified (or is that tiger-ified) by Hobbes, his (imaginary – or is he?) best friend, a “walking, talking tiger” to Calvin and an inanimate plush toy to everyone else (and intriguingly of different appearance from his animate appearance to Calvin).

Amusingly, Calvin and Hobbes were named for the sixteenth century theologian John Calvin and sixteenth century philosopher Thomas Hobbes respectively – pointing to the philosophical themes of the comic.

Arguably Calvin embodies the child in every adult, while Hobbes represents the adult in every child – particularly with the latter tending to act as the voice of reason and conscience to Calvin. Hobbes also has a thing for “babes”.

The fantasy – or reality – of Hobbes’ dual nature is one of the most appealing parts of the strip, as is the fantasy or reality of the titular duo’s many adventures and misadventures, but perhaps also (ironically) of least consequence – “Watterson has described the matter as being a non-question: This is not a strip about a young reality warper going on magical adventures with a stuffed animal that comes to life when no one else is looking, nor is it as simple as a boy with a stuffed tiger and an overactive imagination. This is a strip about the world seen through Calvin’s eyes. To Calvin, Hobbes is a real tiger, a cardboard box is a cloning device, a wagon driven off a ramp can fly to Mars, and mutant snowmen can stage a rebellion against their creator. And that is all that matters”.

I’m prompted to think of the play Harvey and its film adaptation as a spiritual predecessor, with its protagonist’s six-foot rabbit ‘imaginary friend’ Harvey playing the role of Hobbes:

“I’ve wrestled with reality for 35 years, Doctor, and I’m happy to state I finally won out over it. I always have a wonderful time, wherever I am, whoever I’m with”.

 

A-TIER (TOP TIER)

 

 

 

 

(4) JUNJI ITO –

TOMIE (1987 – PRESENT)

 

Yes, I’m including manga in special mentions otherwise of American or European comics – just because of Junji motherfreaking Ito!

You never forget horror manga artist and writer Junji Ito once you’ve seen his work, either in their original form or in their screen adaptations. It’s horror that operates as horror because it is weird and disturbing.

“Ito’s work consists of many subgenres of horror, mainly being host to the subgenres of body horror and cosmic horror. Much of his work is based solely in them, with other themes including a relationship of predator to prey, a loss of humanity, apocalyptic scenarios, and obsession being common. The universe Ito depicts is cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.”

If I am to pick one Ito work above all others, it has to be Tomie – the recurring immortal girl that drives men to madness and keeps coming back even if you kill her.

 

 

 

 

(5) PETER MILLIGAN –

SHADE THE CHANGING MAN (1990-1996)

 

“Sometimes I think that if I wasn’t crazy…I’d go crazy”

Peter Milligan is another British comics writer that started as writing for 2000 AD, most notably with Bad Company – a future war story in which a bizarre company of soldiers fight humanity’s bizarre war against the alien Krool.

However, contrary to my characteristic preference for 2000 AD, my favorite is his work for DC Comic’s Vertigo imprint label for more mature graphic novels outside the publishing restrictions of mainstream comics. Milligan came to Vertigo towards the end of the first wave of the so-called British invasion or ‘Britwave’ of British writers into American comics – and like his fellow British writers for Vertigo, he revamped an obscure DC Comics character, Shade the Changing Man.

The focus of the series is Shade, an interdimensional traveler to Earth from the parallel world of Meta, with the reality-warping ‘power of madness’ (which seems to be part of Metan technology) – he resembles another of my favorites, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, but with power born of madness instead of dreams. But then, what are dreams if not a little madness in our lives?

In other words, it starts off weird and gets weirder – a psychedelic fantasy and odyssey. The initial narrative has the most defined plot structure, as Shade was sent to Earth to defeat a dangerous manifestation of madness and the American psyche or collective unconscious, the American Scream. After that, it is the personifications from Shade’s own psyche that are dangerous, as well as other beings born from the Area of Madness – which after all extends to the land of dreams and the dead, angels and the Devil. Shade himself dies, but is reborn through the power of madness – jumping bodies and on one occasion gender as Shade the Changing Woman (anticipating the more recent reboot of a female Shade).

 

 

 

 

(6) PAT MILLS –

REQUIEM VAMPIRE KNIGHT (2000 – PRESENT)

 

The Franco-British comic Requiem Vampire Knight – or French title Requiem Chevalier Vampire – by British writer Pat Mills and French artist Olivier Ledroit is exactly what is says on the tin – the protagonist Requiem is, ah, a vampire knight (or chevalier).

The intriguing part is that it is posthumous fantasy of the darkest kind – I am a fan of posthumous fantasy or fantasy set in the afterlife, and that’s before you throw in Mills’ characteristic blackly comic misanthropy. Life sucks and the afterlife sucks more. Literally. The protagonist, a German soldier from the Second World War, is killed on the Eastern Front only to find himself in the posthumous fantasy setting known as Resurrection – a literally hellish inversion of Earth in which land and sea are reversed (with seas of perpetual fire in the place of the terrestrial continents) and whose resurrected inhabitants age in reverse, growing younger into infancy (and beyond into non-existence) with fading memories. Worst of all, the more evil one was in life, the better they are rewarded in Resurrection as various classes of monster, with the vampires as the elite aristocracy (populated by such characters as the historical Dracula, Nero, Caligula and Attila the Hun) and former innocent victims as the lowly lemures, “outcasts at best and food or entertainment at worst”. The protagonist finds himself resurrected as the titular vampire knight – but still plagued by a conscience, particularly towards the love of his former life, the Jewish Rebecca, now a lemure (a term borrowed from Roman mythology) bent on her ticket out of Resurrection (‘expiring’ her former tormentor).

In the words of TV Tropes, “an age-old adage was that, if you were bad in life, when you died it generally got worse. Nowhere is this idea more assaulted, mugged, curb-stomped and left for dead face-down in a rancid gutter than in the world of Résurrection, the brainchild of Pat Mills and illustrated in excruciatingly loving and gory detail by Olivier Ledroit”.

 

 

 

 

 

(7) BILL WILLINGHAM –

FABLES (2002-2015 & 2022-2024)

 

The series is summed up by the title of its opening issue – Legends in Exile.

All myths are true. Characters from fairy tales and folklore, the titular Fables, are real – and are living in New York! New York City, that is, for the human Fables – non-human Fables (or those who can’t magically transform themselves into humans) are still in New York but upstate not the city, in “the Farm”. Refugees from their own story worlds or Homelands, driven into our non-magical or Mundane world to escape the inexorably expanding empire of the multiverse-conquering Adversary.

A little like the TV series Once Upon a Time for those who saw that series, only with more depth. There are some intriguing aspects that only get deeper the further you go. The Fables often use or weaponize their storied attributes as superpowers – including immortality and to some extent invulnerability based on the popularity of their stories, although whether the latter is the case is debated by the Fables themselves. My favorite aspect is how some Fable characters are the same recurring archetypal character across stories – such as Jack, representing all fairy tale or nursery rhyme Jacks, who as we see in his spinoff series Jack of Fables does deals with all the different devils of fairy tales and folklore.

 

 

 

(8) MORNING GLORIES (Image Comics 2010 – ?!)

 

“What did you see when your eyes were opened?”

Well, for one thing, I saw Morning Glories, an ongoing series from Image Comics that had me enraptured from the first issue I read. In the tagline of its writer Nick Spencer, it’s Runaways meets Lost (without the ending of the latter, or indeed any ending at present).

In my eyes, it’s as if the Illuminati had a high school – or perhaps more aptly, since it is referenced by name, as if Grant Morrison’s Invisibles had a high school. Or if Night Vale WAS a high school, given that it has one. Indeed, Nick Spencer shows a positively Morrisonesque flair for twists and turns of storyline, at times even coming close to Morrison’s unrivalled hand at those fabulous comics one-liners or that juxtaposition of word and image.

The Morning Glories (or just Glories) is the nickname for the protagonist group of six new students, selected for the prestigious Morning Glory Academy – selected, that is, for a very particular and peculiar set of selection criteria. Which may or may not explain that they all seem to manifest mysterious abilities or future selves, and that they all seem to have dark or strange pasts (including – perhaps – the occasional homicide).

It doesn’t explain why the location of the school is kept mysterious by drugging each new student before arrival – or why their parents don’t even seem to remember their very existence when they call them from the school (with one notable exception, which necessitates the most unfortunate consequences). It certainly doesn’t explain the “mysterious and shadowy purpose of this dizzying boarding school of horrors”, which remains mysterious and shadowy except only that it seems to be the tip of a global conspiracy – or conspiracies.

Not to mention the other paranormal phenomena or time travel within and without its walls. (In one of my favorite Morrisonesque one-liners from the series, a student enquires as to the trippy design of a time machine – “Who built it?” “You did” is the reply).

Nor does it explain the sadistic faculty staff, led by the unseen headmaster behind the scenes – who don’t hesitate to resort to progressive mind control techniques, extreme physical discipline and the occasional sacrifice.

After all, it’s “for a better future” and we all have to make sacrifices. Literally.

 

B-TIER (HIGH TIER)

 

 

 

 

(9) HELLBLAZER (1988-2013, 2019-2020, 2024)

 

“I’m the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and cigarette and arrogance, ready to deal with the madness. Oh, I’ve got it all sewn up. I can save you. If it takes the last drop of your blood, I’ll drive your demons away. I’ll kick them in the bollocks and spit on them when they’re down and then I’ll be gone back into darkness, leaving only a nod and a wink and a wisecrack. I walk my path alone… who would walk with me?”

THE DC Vertigo series – and certainly longest running series – and virtual anthology of the best writers in comics, all writing the titular character, including my favorite writers from ‘British Invasion’ of American comics (and from 2000 AD).

The titular Hellblazer, John Constantine, originated with one such writer, Alan Moore, in his Swamp Thing – with the intended appearance and British nationality of Sting. TV Tropes sums him up best – a “con man, occult detective, gambler and magician of ill repute” who “tangled with Hell, Heaven, the police and the criminal underworld”. John Constantine may not have been the origin of the occult detective trope, but he codified it, particularly of the trenchcoat variety, and various other figures of contemporary fantasy have followed in his occult detective footsteps – Harry Dresden, John Taylor and Sandman Slim amongst others.

What more do you need to know? Read the damned thing, already!

 

 

 

 

(10) FRANK MILLER –

SIN CITY (1991-2000)

 

Frank Miller’s finest artwork apart from blood splatter, something (both finest artwork and blood splatter) which recurs frequently in Miller’s “absurdly macho” comic noir (or neo noir) Sin City. Its black and white line art is matched only by its black and grey morality. And we’re talking a pretty dark grey! It’s a mystery how the city of the title, Basin City, isn’t completely depopulated, as its economy seems to consist entirely of sociopathy and of course “wh0reswh0reswh0res”.

“Sin City reads like an Affectionate Parody of Film Noir turned Up to Eleven: every hero is a mentally or physically scarred bruiser and every woman is a beautiful dame with a heaving bosom”

Shoutout to Frank Miller’s 300, which is even more absurdly macho (Rated M for Manly according to TV Tropes), because THIS! IS! SPARTA!

 

 

 

(11) JEFF SMITH –

BONE (1991-2004)

 

Bone is like if Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck suddenly popped into Game of Thrones – which I suppose could happen now that Disney owns Fox? Who knows? Anyway – literal cartoon characters placed in the middle of an epic fantasy of an increasingly desperate struggle against an otherworldly foe. Or in the words of TV Tropes – a “lengthy independent comic book series by Jeff Smith that took 13 years to complete, mixing the sensibilities of a joke-of-the-day comic strip like Pogo with the sweeping story of an epic fantasy à la The Lord of the Rings”

The cartoon protagonists, the Bone trio of cousins, are indeed cartoon characters, both visually and in personality, who’ve been exiled from their (unseen) cartoon village Boneville. The main protagonist, Fone Bone, is the most dependable, resourceful and moral of the Bone cousins. Smiley Bone is good-hearted but dim-witted (although his good heart sees him through most of the time). Phoney Bone is the reason they have been exiled from Boneville – a greedy, hotheaded schemer with perpetual plans to make money (usually by a con or cheat).

The epic fantasy protagonist Thorn and her family are at the heart of a war against the Lord of the Locusts, the Hooded One and their minions of ravenous rat-creatures.

Stupid, stupid rat-creatures! As Fone Bone dubs the duo of ineffectual rat-creature henchmen in their hapless pursuit of him and the other protagonists. They are indeed not the brightest – and strangely endearing for it. They’re just not cut out for this evil villainy business

Apparently Netflix has the rights to a TV adaptation – presumably animated. It seems unlikely but maybe they’ll do it and do it right.

 

 

 

 

(12) MIKE MIGNOLA –

HELLBOY (DARK HORSE 1993 – PRESENT)

 

Dark Horse comic series Hellboy has been popularized by the Guillermo de Toro films (less so by its latest reboot, of which we won’t speak)

But then, what’s not to love about a comic series in which the hero is the literal Beast of the Apocalypse? (Or Anung Um Rama – “upon his brow is set a crown of flame”). Of course, he’s one of the good guys – and humanity’s best hope against hell and other eldritch abominations – because of his human upbringing. His backstory is that he was summoned as an infant demon in the last days of the Second World War to turn the tide of that war in Project Ragna Rok by Nazi occultists, led by none other than Grigori Rasputin – the mad monk turned eldritch abomination himself. I can’t help but feel Rasputin cheated his Nazi patrons if they expected victory for their war, as Rasputin was apparently playing the apocalyptic long game. Fortunately, Rasputin and his Nazi occultists are opposed by the Americans and their nascent Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development, who disrupt the ritual and raise Hellboy as one of their own – as he grows into his full-blown demonic appearance, with horns (which he files down for appearance), hooves, tail and red skin.

Again, what’s not to love about this comic series? Nazi occultists? Rasputin? Secret occult history? Demons and Lovecraftian eldritch abominations, most notably the apocalyptic Ogdru Jahad? And as I said, a series with the Beast of the Apocalypse as hero, fighting his own apocalyptic destiny – embodied in his Right Hand of Doom, the key to the abyss…?

 

 

 

 

(13) KURT BUSIEK –

ASTRO CITY (1995-PRESENT)

 

A long-running superhero anthology series through various imprints of Image Comics and DC – with a rotating roster of superheroes and the only truly consistent ‘protagonist’ being the titular city itself as setting. Indeed, Astro City’s superhero back story goes back at least to the nineteenth century (Astro City’s supernatural champion the Hanged Man, the Old Soldier and Ironhorse, the Human Locomotive) and probably earlier. The heroes typically resemble the superheroes of other comics with my favorites being the Superman-like Samaritan (although he’s a time-traveler rather than a space-traveler), the Amazonian Winged Victory and the Batman-like Confessor (who hides a dark secret).

 

 

 

 

(14) STEVE NILES & BEN TEMPLESMITH –

30 DAYS OF NIGHT (IDW 2004 – 2009)

 

This comics series came to my attention through its film adaptation, which is ironically fitting as the comic was initially an unsuccessful film pitch, only to turn full circle back into film adaptation after it became a breakout success story for writer Steve Niles and intense Australian artist Ben Templesmith (which it also brought to my attention).

And what’s not to love about a comic that brought some raw bloody horror back to vampires in comics and film? No Twilight vampires here – these are sharks on legs, even in their pale-skinned black-eyed blood-smeared shark-mouthed appearance.

Mostly invulnerable to all but sunlight, the plot of the initial series followed vampires to the Alaskan town of Barrow – who then use the month-long Arctic night for a literal feeding frenzy. A small and dwindling number of town’s residents survive by hiding, led by the town’s sheriff Eben Olemaun and his estranged wife Stella, but face increasingly desperate choices to survive the titular thirty days of night.

Oh – and it did indeed make a fine horror film. And also a franchise, which expanded the mythology of the vampires (and human characters) within the series. My favorite sequel (or more precisely prequel) used the Arctic night in a different setting – the Eastern Front, where the German and Soviet soldiers have to band together against a more deadly and ravenous enemy…

 

 

 

 

(15) GARTH ENNIS –

THE BOYS (DYNAMITE 2006 – 2012)

 

I was introduced to this comic by the first season of its television adaptation in 2019, which prompted me to read it ahead of the other seasons. I’m glad I did, as while the television series had diminishing returns each season to the extent that I abandoned it before the finale (which I understand to have been disappointing at best), I read the comic through to the end.

The comic is by Garth Ennis – with whom I was familiar from 2000 AD and even more so his, ah, confrontational comic series Preacher, which perhaps best encapsulated his reputation and recurring tendency to be a provocateur or just for sheer shock value. Ennis quipped that The Boys would out-Preacher Preacher, presumably in terms of its profanity, sex and violence. I’m not sure that anything could out-Preacher Preacher, but The Boys certainly gives it a shot. And ultimately it may be for the best, as I prefer The Boys. It told a better story, and if anything, seemed less purely gratuitous for its own sake than Preacher – although the TV series certainly leaned into the shock value. (Although don’t get me wrong – I liked Preacher or at least it got stuck in my mind as you certainly never forget it).

The series takes place in a world where superheroes exist, although such that you would prefer they didn’t. On the superhero side, you have the Seven, the world’s leading superhero team – sponsored by the powerful corporation Vought International – and mostly copies of the Justice League, led by its equivalent of Superman (with some Captain America thrown in), Homelander, who more than earns the description of diabolical and invokes the trope Beware the Superman.

And on the other side, you have the titular Boys, vigilante cape-busters forced to use their smarts, skills and willingness to fight dirty (including some of the superheroes’ own weapons) against their adversaries – led by Billy Butcher, perhaps the series’ most compelling character to rival his primary adversary, Homelander.

The comic has layers to it that the television series did not – and diverged substantially (and progressively) from the latter with each season.

 

 

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

 

 

 

 

(16) TOM GAULD (2001 – PRESENT)

 

And now we move to my wild-tier, essentially those I know as webcomic strips – although with respect to Tom Gauld I refer loosely to webcomics as seeing his cartoons through social media, as he is a published cartoonist.

Indeed, he’s a prolific published cartoonist, with his work regularly published in The Guardian, The New Yorker, and New Scientist (as per the brief bio or “about” section on his website) – not to mention books or collections close to every year since 2001.

His style reflects his self-professed fondness of “deadpan comedy, flat dialogue, things happening offstage and impressive characters” (as stated in his Wikipedia article, in turn quoting an interview with him in 2012 by Hayley Campbell for the Comics Journal).

The New Yorker is perhaps the archetypal publication for his cartoons, given its history and reputation for erudite cartoons going back at least to James Thurber. I can’t help but feel something of the spirit of James Thurber in the work of Tom Gauld – although whereas Thurber was more slice-of-life situational absurdist comedy, Gauld has more of a literary and scientific referential bent.

 

 

 

 

(17) REZA FARAMUND –

POORLY DRAWN LINES (2008 – PRESENT)

 

An episodic comic strip, with each episode a self-contained gag, although with recurring animal characters (particularly Ernesto the bear) – typically absurdist or satirical in tone and usually snarky.

“The comic features a large and diverse cast of humans and animals who freely interact with each other. Much of the humor is nonsensical and surreal, often featuring the characters making an unexpectedly big deal out of minor inconveniences and reacting normally to ridiculous threats.”

Ernesto and the comic are pretty much summed up by my favorite strip about having a polite discussion that I used for my feature image – which also encapsulates many interactions on social media.

It’s developed into a franchise, with the publication of compilations or other related books, as well as an animated series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

(18) SARAH ANDERSEN –

SARAH’S SCRIBBLES (2011 – present)

 

A semi-autobiographical webcomic strip by Sarah Andersen, centered around a cartoon version of herself “who feel ill-equipped for adult life”.

Pretty much summed up by her book collection title – Adulthood is a Myth.

 

 

 

 

 

(19) NICK SELUK (THE AWKWARD YETI) –

HEART & BRAIN (2012 – PRESENT)

 

Go Heart, go!

Heart and Brain is an ongoing webcomic strip published intermittently by Nick Seluck (a.k.a. Lars the Awkward Yeti), with each strip as a self-contained gag.

Heart and Brain originated within (and spun off from) Seluck’s Awkward Yeti strip, which involved a literal blue-furred yeti living an otherwise human life, except of course for his titular social awkwardness. (Although what yeti wouldn’t be living among humans?). In that strip, he would interact with various organs in his own body, except that they would amusingly appear as anthropomorphic beings outside of his body. Not too anthropomorphic of course – they still had their anatomical appearance – but with their own personalities as well as limbs and faces, usually in the form of eyes and mouths. However, this varies – the eyes are just big eyeballs with limbs, while the brain has no mouth or eyes (yet wears glasses and obviously can see as well as read). Their appearance alone is enough to crack me up.

Of course, Heart and Brain are the foremost organs as essentially the driving forces of human personality) – their spinoff strip is not so much them interacting with the Awkward Yeti, but primarily with each other as well as occasionally other organs. Heart is not so much his role as the muscle in the circulatory system – although he is that – but the more metaphorical sense of heart, the emotional (and child-like) personality within us all. And he is adorable – with his fixation on dressing as Batman and his constant butterfly companion, representing (literally in a sense) his flights of fancy. Of course, Brain is Heart’s counterpart as rational adult personality – although not entirely rational, as he is prone to rumination and stress or, dare I say it, overthinking.

Not surprisingly, Nick Seluck has a bachelor’s degree in psychology – with Heart and Brain representing well-known dichotomies such as extroversion and introversion or emotion and logic (or id and ego/superego in Freudian terms):

“The heart follows its feelings and emotions, chasing down butterflies and getting excited about kittens, while the brain is concerned about adult responsibility. While the heart skips to emotional need, the brain brings in reason and logic for why the heart’s action are ill-advised…Heart and Brain as the internal tennis match we often face between our romantic hearts and our realistic brains.”

As stated, Heart and Brain interact primarily with each other (as natural odd couple), but also on occasion with other body parts. Most of these body parts are good-natured, except my personal favorite after Heart – Tongue, who is the comic’s equivalent of an evil supervillain dedicated to sensory taste experience, and who, amusingly enough, does have the facial characteristics of eyes, mouth and tongue. He also gets bonus points for having, aptly enough, a lisp (as well as being rather…spluttery).

 

 

 

 

 

(20) PLAYBOY

 

You should have seen this one coming, as I like to reserve my final twentieth special mention for the kinky (or kinkier) entry from the subject matter.

It also dovetails nicely with my first special mention for Mad Magazine. As with Mad Magazine, Playboy was hereditary for me – albeit unsurprisingly from my father rather than my mother for Magazine. As with Mad Magazine, I was raised on Playboy – unofficially of course, from covertly raiding my father’s impressively comprehensive Playboy collection. And yes, like Mad Magazine, Playboy was a huge influence on me. If you peel back the layers of my messy psyche, you’ll find Playboy lodged deep throughout it, perhaps even most of it – and definitely most of my id.

But I’ll have you know that, as the trope goes – although usually mocked as a transparent alibi or excuse – I did indeed “read it for the articles”. Now I’m not going to equivocate – obviously as the archetypal (and perpetually) adolescent male, I looked at it for its signature nude photography and models, those proverbial Playboy bunnies, Playmates and centerfolds. But AFTER I did that, I did indeed read it for its articles – and even more so, its comics. And those comics also lodged deep in my psyche.

“Playboy founder Hugh Hefner…was a lifelong admirer of comics and went out of his way to not only feature many comics in the pages of Playboy for over 50 years, but he also put his money where his mouth was in his support of comic artists, as the rates he paid were unheard of at the time”. And as noted by Comic Book Resources’ tribute to Hefner after his death, almost assuredly, the reason that Hefner was so into comics was that he, himself, was a comic book artist when he was growing up. While Hefner was in high school, he kept a comic book diary about his life – and it is not too hard to see the origin of Playboy in that. And upon founding Playboy, Hefner was intent on heavily featuring comics within the magazine

Liberally spread through each magazine in its heyday – and liberally paid as well – were cartoons or comics from some of the best and brightest contemporary cartoonists – “hip subversives and sly revolutionaries all, Playboy’s artists have continually proffered a sophisticated brand of humor sorely missing in other men s magazines…offering insightful commentary on topics from the sexual revolution to relationships, money, and politics”.

Perhaps the archetypal subject for Playboy cartoons (or at least that subject I remember more than any other) was the recurring image of the husband walking in on the adulterous wife (and vice versa although less so) in flagrante delicto – with the punchline as the implausible excuse being offered up by the suitor. “Now you grab the choking victim like this…”, in perhaps the most implausible demonstration of the Heimlich Maneuver ever.

And then you have some particular comics within Playboy, such as “Little Annie Fanny”, by none other than Mad Magazine’s Harvey Kurtzman – a satire of sexual mores in contemporary American society and parody of Little Orphan Annie, if the latter was a buxom blonde who innocently found herself nude in every episode.

A personal favorite and my featured image, the femlin – or female gremlin, a spritely but statuesque female figure clad only in black stockings, long gloves and heels which would cavort through Playboy’s Party Jokes (within the centerfold). Created by artist Leroy Neiman and depicted essentially as black and white line drawings in mischievous poses, with perhaps the archetypal pose curled up provocatively inside a wine glass (replicated or replicating real-life cover models)

And arguably also Playboy’s most iconic image that I’ve used as my feature image, its jauntily stylized silhouetted bow-tied rabbit logo – with a running joke of featuring it on every cover, generally hiding it somewhere.

Playboy is also representative of er0tic comics in general – a surprisingly prolific subject which could well be the subject of its own top ten. However, I have to at least mention Playboy’s rival magazine Penthouse and its comic strips here – particularly “O Wicked Wanda!” about the titular globe-trotting (and ultimately time-travelling) dominatrix heroine. My preference however was its successor “Sweet Chastity” – essentially a retold Frankenstein, if Frankenstein’s monster was a buxom pink-haired beauty.