The Best American Comics 2014
Scott McCloud, Guest Editor
Bill Kartalopoulos, Series Editor
Table of Contents
GREAT COMICS ARE NOT A GENRE
JAIME HERNANDEZ
Crime Raiders International Mobsters and Executioners
from Love and Rockets: New Stories #5
BEN KATCHOR
Picnic Now!, Sickroom Reading, and The Hand Laundry
from Metropolis Magazine
CHARLES BURNS
The Hive (Excerpt)
GILBERT HERNANDEZ
All the Marbles (Excerpt)
from Marble Season
ADRIAN TOMINE
Translated, from the Japanese,
from Optic Nerve #13
R. CRUMB and ALINE KOMINSKY-CRUMB
High Road to the Shmuck Seat
from Drawn Together
BEN KATCHOR
A 21st Century Still Life
from Metropolis Magazine
RAISING READERS
RAINA TELGEMEIER
Drama (Excerpt)
FANNY BRITT AND ISABELLE ARSENAULT
Jane, the Fox, and Me (Excerpt)
FAMILY TREE
MIRIAM KATIN
Letting It Go (Excerpt)
TOM HART
RL (Excerpt) from RL #2
SAM SHARPE
Mom (Excerpt)
from Viewotron #2
NINA BUNJEVAC
August, 1977
from Heartless
STRANGE ADVENTURES
MARK SIEGEL
The Mermaid in the Hudson (Excerpt)
from Sailor Twain, or The Mermaid in the Hudson
BRIAN K. VAUGHN AND FIONA STAPLES
Saga Chapter 7 (Excerpt) from Saga #7
BRANDON GRAHAM
Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity #1 (Excerpt)
TED MAY
Dimensions
from Men's Feelings
THE BOOK OF THE YEAR IS NOT A BOOK
CHRIS WARE
Building Stories (Excerpt)
from Building Stories
TESTIMONIALS
JOHN LEWIS, ANDREW AYDIN, AND NATE POWELL
March: Book One (Excerpt)
FRANK YOUNG AND DAVID LASKY
The Program Is Morally Good (Excerpt)
from The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song
ED PISKOR
Hip Hop Family Tree (Excerpt)
from Boing Boing
WEBCOMICS
ALLIE BROSH
Depression Part Two (Excerpt)
from Hyperbole and a Half
EVEN STRANGER ADVENTURES
MICHAEL DEFORGE
Canadian Royalty
from Lose #4
THEO ELLSWORTH
The Understanding Monster–Book One (Excerpt)
THE KUIPER BELT
RON REGE, JR.
Is There Silence?, The Implications of Making Something from Nothing via the Spiritual Realm AND This Is Magic–This Is Alchemy
from The Cartoon Utopia
C.F.
Face It
from The New York Times Opinionator
VICTOR CAYRO
Bittersweet Romance (Excerpt)
ONSMITH
Whistle While You Work . . . or Think of Death
from Study Group Magazine #2
GERALD JABLONSKI
Schweinhund AND Howdy, His Nephew Dee Dee and a Friend of Howdy's Nephew
from Cryptic Wit #3
LALE WESTVIND
Hyperspeed to Nowhere, Return to Entropy (Excerpt)
from Hyperspeed to Nowhere #2
G.W. DUNCANSON
Untitled Selections
from Cash Money Cartoons
AIDAN KOCH
Blue Period
from Sonatina #2
ERIN CURRY
Ambient Air (Part II)
from Ambient Air
MEMORY BOXES
RICHARD THOMPSON
Cul de Sac, September 17–23, 2012
from Cul de Sac
SAM ALDEN
Hawaii 1997
from samaldencomics.tumblr.com
On the subject of our process, I cannot urge any artist or publisher strongly enough to submit work to Best American Comics. We have a completely open submission process, and all work that is submitted will be considered. Please send work, labeled with contact information and date of publication, to:
Bill Kartalopoulos
Series Editor
The Best American Comics
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
3 Park Avenue, 19th floor
New York, NY 10016
We feel very strongly about the material selected to appear in Best American Comics and are excited to share these works with a broader audience. But we also acknowledge that this is but one carefully considered selection of the vast body of great work published in any given year.
In addition to reprinting a highly selective body of outstanding work, each volume of The Best American Comics also includes a lengthy list of Notable Comics selected by the Series Editor to more fully indicate the breadth and quality of the field. The previous Series Editors of Best American Comics, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden, instituted a policy of posting a hyperlinked version of their Notables lists on their website in order to draw more attention to these honored works. This seems like an excellent decision to me, so I have done the same here and will continue to do so for future volumes of Best American Comics that I work on.
In the column to the left you'll find the Table of Contents for The Best American Comics 2014, and below I have reproduced this year's list of Notable Comics. Clicking on the author's name will take you directly to that artist's website. Clicking on the book cover or title will, in most cases, take you to a site where you can find the indicated work. These comics are all well worth your time if you have enjoyed The Best American Comics 2014
Booklist review (starred)
Kirkus review
Publishers Weekly review
Graphic Novel Reporter review
Boing Boing review
Denver Post review
Miami Herald review
Washington Post review
USA Today review
Bookgasm review
Largehearted Boy review
Comicsgirl review
Comics Bulletin review
Comics Grinder review
The New Yorker coverage
LA Times coverage
Washington Post interview with Scott McCloud
Paste Magazine interview with Bill Kartalopoulos
Publishers Weekly: More to Come interview with Scott McCloud
Graphic Novel Reporter interview with Bill Kartalopoulos
Huffington Post spotlight on Aidan Koch's "Blue Period" from Best American Comics 2014
The Seattle Stranger: "The Best American Comics 2014 Is Maybe the Best Book in the Entire Best American Series"
New York Daily News books blog
The Awesomer spotlight
Comics Grinder interview with Bill Kartalopoulos
September 1, 2012 to August 31, 2013
Selected by Bill Kartalopoulos
