I stand corrected.

That makes a lot more sense.

My #11 pick is Al Jaffee...




I spoken before in the forum (and on the old one at CBR) about how MAD magazine made a huge impact on me as a 10 or 11-year old, which is when I first encountered it. As I get older, I become increasingly aware of how the publication shaped my character, personality, political views and general distrust of authority as an adult. My favourite parts of the magazine were usually the movie or TV satires drawn by Mort Drucker or Angelo Torres. But of the artists who also wrote their own strips, and are therefore eligible for this year's Classic Comics Christmas, Al Jaffee is without doubt my favourite. In particular, his regular "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" strip has always been a favourite...






Also, his "Some MAD Devices for Safer Smoking", which I had in a MAD summer special, I believe, has always been memorable to me...




But probably my favourite thing that Jaffee contributed to MAD was all those amazing fold-ins. They were beautifully drawn, never failed to amuse and the level of reader interaction required (i.e. you had to fold the back cover yourself to get the gag) only made them more enjoyable. Here are a few good 'uns that I found online...

# 11 worked in a music store and took a few days off when he realized how much he hated it. He submitted a few cartoons to a local Seattle magazine, and then a paper, for a little extra income. On a trip to San Francisco, he submitted to The San Francisco Chronicle, where they liked it and promoted it for syndication after changing the name of the strip from Nature's Way to The Far Side.

Gary Larson's work shows comparisons and contrasts with humans and animals and black ironic humor with a good dose of surrealism. The single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to over 1,900 newspapers for 15 years. The series ended with Larson's retirement on January 1, 1995, ending while the series was still fresh before it degenerated into mediocrity. His 23 books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than 45,000,000 copies.

On the second day of Christmas, comics, my true love gave to me...

Dylan Horrocks

and Hicksville



I was turned on to Hicksville at a time when I was starting to burn out on mainstream super-hero stuff altogether and wanting to experiment more. I had already been reading Moore, Ellis, and other "avante garde" mainstream stuff (a cognitive dissonance I know) but I needed/wanted more. I had just read McCloud's Understanding Comics for the first time and was open to a lot of possibilities, and my friend Brian who ran the lcs I went to turned me on to Rick Veitch's Comicon.com (now a pale shadow of what it was) and I started exploring a lot of stuff there (and many of the creators I discovered there have gotten serious consideration for this list) and several of the comments form creators there led me to a little book called Hicksville by New Zealand cartoonist Dylan Horrocks-collecting some semi-underground stuff he did for a book called Pickles.

Horrocks loves comics in all forms form mini-comics to super-hero epics but he has a healthy disdain for the business of comics, the way it chews up creators, denigrates the art of comics in favor of lowest common denominator content that sells, and crushes the artistic creative dreams of those caught in the cogs of its machine. That passion and disdain are clearly on display in Hicksville, a fictional town I would love to visit if possible, a place where everyone loves and reads comics, a place where the local library has multiple copies of Action Comics #1 for people to read...



because no one there cars about the collectibility or value of comics but about the stories told and the joy of making and reading comics.

Except for the black sheep of the town, a man named Dick Burger (a name that makes me think of Coldwater and Pharazonk now every time I see it).

Horrocks writing encapsulates a love of comics in a way that I consider him a kindred spirit. His cartooning style is simple, versatile, functional and beautifully ugly, a style you'd be more likely to find in the mini-comics I see at small pres cons than in a mainstream comic (though Horrocks did go one to do some writing for DC/Vertigo).

He varies his style at times in the comic as part of the narrative need...

his normal style...



his mini-comic style for the Moxie and Toxie bits...



or mashing up the two for certain bits as seen here...



or emulating a more mainstream comic style when doing Burger's super-hero stuff...



or again a fusion of styles on the same page...



and similar to his normal style but slightly different is his mystery comic featuring Captain Cook that apears all through this tale as a kind of magic realism guide to the rest of the story...



and while his figures are simple and cartoony, his landscape art is breathtaking at times...



The work is textured, layered and thoughtful. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me rage, it became a part of me.

-M

11. Eric Shanower
...for his work on Age of Bronze

Age of Bronze is a truly excellent retelling of the Trojan War, combining history and myth, which at this point has taken longer to tell than the war itself. Shanower is also known for his work on a variety of Oz stories, but I have not read enough of those. Age of Bronze is awesome. Dutifully researched, intricately drawn, he works very hard to make all the characters seem like characters of their time. This can best be seen in his lovely rendition of the most beautiful woman in the world, taking her look not from modern supermodels but classical standards of beauty. It boasts an ensemble cast, and Shanower gives everybody a unique look and voice, enough to keep you engaged in each of their stories, even as you wait years between volumes...

Alan Moore has been a big promoter of Ward, citing him as a striking exemple of where creativity lies when asked about his critique of US mainstream comics.