As 2011 comes to a close, I can say with a bit of relief that the amount of quality content being published within the world of comics continues to increase steadily. The interest in recent years in high-end, lavish, oversized archival editions and spiffy comic related art books signifies that people are not just reading comics for their obvious entertainment value, but also seeing the medium more and more as the valid literary and artistic arena it’s been since day one. As such I’ve assembled a list of 2011’s best that includes titles from across the increasingly eclectic (yet all welcoming) world that are the comics of today.
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War, murder, corpse dismemberment, drug abuse, human immolation and religious fanaticism are, quite understandably, things not normally attributed to the beloved Carlo Collodi fairy tale Pinocchio. However, the traditional telling of the wooden boy who wishes to be a real flesh-and-blood child is far from what you’ll find in the astonishing 192 page oversized hardcover Pinocchio by Winshluss, translated from the original French edition and available now from Last Gasp.
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2011 marks the 25th anniversary of San Francisco’s WonderCon and the convention’s growth, particularly within the last few years, has been remarkable to say the least. When I first began attending in the late 90’s the convention was held across the Bay in Oakland (then its home since its inception in 1987) and was still a moderately low-key affair. With its move to the Moscone Center in 2003, attendance has grown steadily with every passing year. Most astounding is the jump from last year’s head count of 34,000 to as many as 45,000 for 2011.
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