The Best American Comics 2016

October 15, 2016
It's been 10 years since the launch of this annual series, and though this installment, guest edited by New Yorker mainstay Chast, doesn't break any new ground in its presentation, that's all well and good, since this solid framework does what it does best: showcase a rich variety of comics. Chast selects pieces from unfamiliar and familiar names, from both print and the web, and presents them in no particular order. They're all great for different reasons, like Liana Finck's All the Paintings Here Agree, which movingly evokes the calm of a familiar art museum in the wake of personal turmoil, with nothing but speech balloons and reproductions of paintings, or John Porcellino's sparely drawn account of preparing for surgery, excerpted from his book The Hospital Suite (2014). Visually striking standouts include Drew Freidman's detailed, almost hyperrealistic caricatures and Genevieve Elverum's beautiful compositions of bundled blankets in a meditation on hospitality and home. Far from being the final word on comics, this series acts as a springboard, introducing more readers to the rich variety in the field.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)