Peter Birkemoe writes:

After picking Sprott for the podcast, an easy choice, I wrote up a short top 10 to supplement that choice.

In getting a list of personal favourites to recommend down to a reasonable length I’ve rationalized leaving off many favourite cartoonists with the thought that their next work could very well be better than anything they have done so far. As a practically minded bookseller I’ve also restricted this to works that are in print, and available in English.

In no particular order:

I Never Liked You by Chester Brown. To pick one of Chester’s books above the others is tough, but this is the one I most often recommend to a new reader. For a story of the awkwardness of adolescence and high school, it has the best title ever.

Black Hole by Charles Burns. Is this the only comic that could be labelled as “horror” that I will ever enjoy? Perhaps. It also has one of the most elegantly executed dream/flashback structures of any work in any medium.

Skibber Bee Bye by Ron Rege, Jr. Ron Rege’s comics and illustrations always have a charm and uniqueness to them but his one long work has an emotional intensity and resonance that seems totally at odds with the surface cuteness.

Curses by Kevin Huizenga. No one captures the act or paths of human thought on the comics page better than Kevin Huizenga. This collection of his masterful short stories is the perfect introduction to his work.

Frank by Jim Woodring (The Portable Frank). The big Frank collection is unavailable right now, but this is a much more affordable, and portable, substitute. Jim Woodring's flawless drawing and animal-like, otherworldly characters make you feel like in one instant like you are watching vintage animation, and in another like you are sharing someone’s hallucination.

Acme Novelty #19 by Chris Ware. Jimmy Corrigan makes it onto nearly every list, but this latest installment of the Acme Novelty had nearly the same impact for me, and in a fraction of as many pages. The perfect science fiction story, by the author from whom I would least expect any genre work.

Breakdowns by Art Spiegelman. Maus gets so much deserved praise, but so rarely for the formal complexity and attention to how cartoon drawings, individual panels or whole pages can convey information. In this recently reprinted and expanded collection of Spiegelman’s earliest comics his formal innovations are at the forefront.

What It Is! by Lynda Barry. Lynda’s latest autobiographical novel/creative exercise book quickly became my favourite of her books. Collage and multimedia had been used to create comics before, but never for me in as compelling a way as this book. I regularly sell this title to high school libraries and feel great thinking about the one or two students who are likely to have their lives (as artists) changed by finding it each year.

Abandon The Old In Tokyo by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Having Tatsumi as a guest for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival was the highlight of my year. His short stories of those left behind by Japan’s post-war prosperity pack more punch that most full-length graphic novels.

Red Colored Elegy by Seiichi Hayashi. Hayashi produced a full-length graphic novel for adults years before anything of the sort was conceived in the West. The story of the starving artist’s struggles and romance at time of social upheaval is told very elliptically with entire scenes reduced to only a few panels. It can be read and reread, and is wonderfully open to many interpretations.