Friday, Jun 3rd, 2011
Utilitarian? Maybe. Hooded? No Longer!
Rob Martin refers to The Hooded Utilitarian as, "…a website devoted to cultural criticism with an emphasis on comics." Right now, H.U. is in the process of gathering lists which will turn into votes which will turn into an early-August countdown of the top vote-getters in H.U.'s effort to name the top ten favorite comics of all time. The invitation to vote puts it this way (emphasis mine):
The specific question of the poll is this: What are the ten comics works you consider your favorites, the best, or the most significant? …Your list may include any newspaper strips, comic-book series, graphic novels, manga features, web comics, editorial cartoons, and single-panel magazine cartoons. These works can be from any country of origin. Please do not include an entry that has yet to be published.
Now, those are a pretty wide-open set of criteria; that is perhaps a good thing for this type of effort, which wants to be as inclusive as possible. In compiling my list, I narrowed the focus a bit, arriving at this concept:
Which works would I select as the top representatives of the artform, works that resonate with seasoned readers within the medium yet can also serve "hook" a comics neophyte?
I'll take the rest of this message and my next two to show you my list and the thinking behind each selection. Since Rob isn't asking for the list to be ranked, I'm rolling out my selections alphabetically by creator. May I have the envelopes, please…?
1) The single-panel magazine cartoons of Charles Addams (The New Yorker)
He's creepy, he's spooky, he's positively ooky—but Chas. Addams gave us far more than The Addams Family, though of course they are, of themselves, quite a deliciously wicked creative accomplishment. His spot cartoons were sometimes bittersweet (two unicorns, stranded on a rock, the ocean waves lapping ever higher as Noah's Ark sails away), sometimes wistful (the lonely lighthouse keeper who finds a valentine washed up on shore), yet consistently entertaining. Here's a typically nefarious Addams cartoon…
2) "Back to the Klondike," featuring Uncle $crooge, by Carl Barks (from Four Color # 456)
Will the Thelma & Louise effect strike again? Barks told so many fine stories, it will be interesting to see if his votes become so diluted across his oeuvre that he ends up omitted from the final H.U. list. I hope that turns out to be not the case, because certainly The Duck Man has charmed generations of readers with his well-wrought, thoroughly-researched tales.
I selected "Back to the Klondike" because its Alaska gold rush setting shows Barks's attention to historical detail and also offers real character growth, plus an ill-fated love gone wrong, hinting that $crooge is a deeper, more complex personality than we're used to seeing within Disney stable.
3) Terry and the Pirates, 1934 - 1946, by Milton Caniff (distributed by the Chicago Tribune New York Daily News Syndicate)
Accuse me of tooting the LOAC horn if you must, but who can dispute that Caniff's sprawling saga meets the criteria I used to compile my list? Many a seasoned comics reader agrees that Terry represents the pinnacle of daily adventure strips; Dean and I both know persons with no ties to the medium who've started reading the exploits of Terry Lee and his many cohorts, look up long enough to remark, "Saa-a-ay…his is pretty good!", then eagerly dive back in for more. Terry is a glorious achievement, and it will be a grave disappointment—not necessarily a surprise, but a disappointment—if it fails to make the H.U. list.
If you haven't already visited The Hooded Utilitarian, you'll find full details about their Top Ten project here.
Next installment: my next four picks.
posted by Bruce Canwell