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JEFF JENSEN'S TOP 5
1. Y: The Last Man
Written by Brian K. Vaughan; art by Pia Guerra
(DC)
Next month, the greatest comic-book saga since Neil Gaiman's Sandman will come to a close after a six-year run. And so, for the final time, let us celebrate what Vaughan and Guerra have created: a brilliantly conceived vision of a semi-dystopian world devastated (and sometime improved) by a mystery virus that has killed all the men except for one. It's amazing how much story, how much Big Idea exploration, how much soapy drama Y has mined out of this narrow sci-fi conceit. The revelations and denouements of the past year have not disappointed. Yorick Brown's long-awaited reunion with girlfriend Beth and the sequence in which Agent 355 finally discloses her real name are my two favorite comic-book moments of the year. Unforgettable, just like the series itself.
2. The Killer (''Le Tueur'')
Written by Matz (yes, just ''Matz''); art by Luc Jacamon
(Archaia Studios Press)
Like foreign films, it's often easy to overestimate the quality of imported comics due to their exotic otherness. But I'm not making that error here. The Killer is the chronicle of an emotionally frozen misanthrope — an assassin by profession — struggling to collect enough cash to retire while grappling with the unsettling stirrings of his buried conscience. Matz and Jacamon have created a storytelling language that is immersive and riveting, whether it's tick-tocking the tedium of a hitman's waiting game in a Paris flat or mounting an action sequence in the lush jungles of Central America. It's a mesmerizing piece of work that thrills to the potential of the comic-book medium.
3. The Three Paradoxes
Paul Hornschemeier
(Fantagraphics)
The follow-up to Hornschemeier's sublime 2004 graphic novella Mother, Come Home was my most anticipated comic of 2007, and it did not disappoint. During a long nighttime walk with his father through his Ohio hometown, a 20-something cartoonist drifts into angsty, interrelated ruminations about his work, about his childhood, about his own artistic purpose. Shading everything is the intriguing mystery of his looming first date with a woman named Julianne he knows only via correspondence. Yeah, it's a little self-involved, but it's suffused with such winning humor, humility, and self-examination that the whole business wonderfully comes off humane and accessible. Three Paradoxes is the funny-book equivalent of melancholy pop like the Shins, and it affirms Hornschemeier's budding rep as a cartoonist/auteur on par with Daniel Clowes and Chris Ware.
4. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season Eight
Written by Joss Whedon and Brian K. Vaughan; art by Georges Jeanty
(Dark Horse)
I'm going to be accused of making an obvious, EW-ish choice or a knee-jerk nod to the Hollywoodization of comics. Regardless, I must say that Joss Whedon's comic-book continuation of his canceled TV series deserves to be on this list because it is, first and foremost, a very good comic — the best, at the moment, of its superhero(ish) kind. Whedon's inaugural arc was a touch clunky in the scripting department; despite his proven skill as a comics scribe (see The Astonishing X-Men), it felt like he was still trying to figure out how to translate Buffy's funny/poignant/poppy TV voice into comics language. Leave it to a great comic-book writer to show him the way: Buffy's second storyline, a Faith tale written by the aforementioned Vaughan, simply nailed it. The issue following Vaughan's run, written by Whedon and on sale now, is the best yet: a Buffy-Willow team-up that features a pretty genius dream sequence involving Tina Fey. Even better, this issue finally convinced me that Buffy the comic just might be every bit as good as Buffy the TV show. And kudos to Whedon for taking this comics venture as seriously as he would TV and film work. Here's hoping others in Hollywood will follow his lead. (Memo to Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas: Hear that foot tapping? That's me and scads of other fans, waiting....)
5. I Killed Adolf Hitler
By Jason (Yes, just ''Jason.'' Whatever.)
(Fantagraphics)
A number of cool comics vied for my final slot, especially Doc Frankenstein (written by the Wachowski Brothers at their irreverent, outrageous, quasi-philosophical best, and drawn by Steve Skroce) and The Immortal Iron Fist (written by Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction, and drawn by David Aja, my favorite new comic artist). But whenever I deliberated the matter, I kept coming back to this tale — set in a cartoony world of humanoid animals — about a ho-hum killer who's hired to travel back in time to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The best thing about this title is how the story really isn't about that at all...and if spoil any more, I risk ruining the pleasure of discovering what it really is all about. Funny, surreal, sweet and even romantic, I Killed Adolf Hitler is an inspired, quirky lark that lingers delightfully in the mind.
(EW.com's weekly comics roundup will return on Wednesday, Jan. 9.)
