The 10 Best Graphic Novels and Comics of 2010

Source: shelf-life.ew.com

It was a good year for a wide array of comics collections and graphic novels. From superheroes to memoirs of old age to vintage reprints, there was something for anyone — which is to say, everyone — interested in visual storytelling. In no particular order:

• Picture This, Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly) Barry’s follow-up to her remarkable What It Is is, once again, a combination how-to book, a memoir, and an inspirational book of the highest order. Picture This will tap into the artist you may have hidden in the recesses in your soul, encouraging you to pick up pencil or paintbrush and begin to enjoy the pleasure and thrill of making art yourself. “You move your hand and you scribble all you want and it feels very good,” she writes. Barry speaks the truth, always.

• How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Sarah Glidden (Vertigo/DC)
A memoir of a trip this left-leaning Jew takes to Israel, determined to have her ideas about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict confirmed. Of course, things turn out more complicated than Glidden had imagined. So do her deceptively simple line drawings, their delicate watercolor shadings, and the thinking that informs the vivid dialogue in a graphic nonfiction novel of subtlety and understated wit.

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Blanks for the Memory: Town Forgets All in Image’s MEMOIR

Source: newsarama.com

Fresh off the success of the comic series Choker (which wraps up in January) and with the Big Two taking notice with such assignments as Captain America & The Korvac Saga, writer Ben McCool has been taking the industry by storm – and this new creator-owned series Memoir is just the latest thunderbolt. Partnering with noted independent artist Nikki Cook (DMZ, Girl Comics, Act-I-Vate), the pair are taking comic readers on a tour of a small Western town you’ll never forget – unless that is, you live there.

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What do you think of these choices of the best graphic novels? What would you pick as your favourite graphic novel for 2010? What are you looking forward to in 2011?

Hope you all had a safe and happy New Year’s!