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Every year I publish my list of favourites, and every year I always realize I’ve forgotten a few due to absent-mindedness or, more likely, my cluttered office. So here are a few more, which I’ll append to the original list:

Oily Comics

There’s something quite special about the unadorned, simple black-and-white mini-minicomics that show up every few weeks from Chuck Forsman’s subscription series, which offers comics from a number of cartoonists like Melissa Mendes, Michael DeForge, Max de Radiguès, and more. They’re small things, and short to read, so unlike the growing pile of unread books by my bedside, they are actually inviting rather than intimidating when it comes to reading them. And they’re cheap and disposable enough that they don’t feel like precious objects. They feel like little gifts when they come in the mail. It appears that subscription memberships are currently closed, but at the very least you can head over to the Oily Boutique and order the books a la carte for a buck a pop.

Distance Mover by Patrick Kyle

Patrick Kyle released the collected book of his comic series Black Mass this year, but for my money I’m much more excited by his latest series Distance Mover, which like Oily Comics, I’ve been getting in the mail every month as a subscription. Each little book is a risographed art object, and I enjoy seeing Patrick’s work grow more abstract and even further from the traditional norm than Black Mass which already eschewed panels in favour of a freeform fill-the-page-with-drawings method. Each issue in the mail comes with goodies like extra prints or zines. Subscriptions are likely closed as the series nears its end, but you can order books directly from Patrick’s site, and read the first three issues (in black and white) online.

Diary Comics #4 by Dustin Harbin

Dustin’s Diary Comics made the list in previous years when they weren’t even this good — the great thing with a project like this is being able to literally see the artist improve over time. This fourth issue comprises more of Dustin’s just-like-the-title-says diary comics, and his drawing chops remain as honed as ever, but it’s the multi-page story Boxes that is the real zinger here. In it Dustin reflects on the diary comics themselves, and how comics have affected his day-to-day perception of the world around him, for better or for worse. Yes, meta journal comics about drawing said comics aren’t anything new, but Dustin’s gifts for thoughtfulness and introspection make it a special thing, and a powerful unexpected product of having distilled his life into four panels, a page at a time, for the past few years. You can read Boxes online for free (full disclosure: I am featured in the story), and buy all of Dustin’s books and prints at his online store (which currently offers 35% off orders of $50 or more with the code DHARBMAS).

Nancy is Happy and Nancy Likes Christmas by Ernie Bushmiller

I knew my list didn’t feel right without any reprints of classic comic strips. Nancy seems to be a love-it-or-leave-it strip, and I am firmly in the Love It camp. Nancy is the granddaddy of the gag strip. Often surreal, and always impeccably drawn, there is nothing quite like it. D&Q got a head start in publishing John Stanley’s Nancy comic books, which are certainly fun, but these Bushmiller strips are the real deal — perfectly constructed comic strips with not a line or word wasted. It’s been said it’s harder to not read a Nancy strip than it is to read one, and for that alone these books are a virtual masterclass in cartooning.

Imagination Illustrated: The Jim Henson Journal

In a list of Great Cartoonists Who Weren’t Cartoonists, Jim Henson would top the list. Is there a better example of simple, contrasting character design than Bert and Ernie? Jim Henson famously kept a journal with simple one-line entries. It was a proto-Twitter account that, of course, is now a Twitter account. This book, Imagination Illustrated, compiles the most notable entries in chronological order and fills the pages with sketches, drawings, photographs, storyboards, and ephemera to create a scrapbook of the Muppet creator’s professional life, and is the perfect piece of nostalgia for a Muppet-loving child of the 80s like myself.

I’ve been picking up a lot of good books lately and though they’ve been classic comics-related, all have animated cartoon connections. Check these out…

Frazetta Funny Stuff edited by Craig Yoe

It wouldn’t be a book round-up without one or two from Craig Yoe. His latest compilation is this remarkable 256 page hardcover collecting much of Frank Frazetta’s (Fire & Ice) funny animal comic art of the 1940s. These comics, which emulate Hollywood cartoons of the era with characters like “Hucky Duck” and “Bruno Bear”, show that Frazetta was equally skilled at exaggerated cartoon line art as he was with his later realistic fantasy paintings. The book devotes over 70 pages to these rare “animated” stories, over 60 pages to his remarkable text-page header illustrations (for such tales as Percy The Pufferfish and Abbott the Rabbit), and another 70 to humorous stories drawn in Frazetta’s more realistic style. Yoe recounts Frazetta’s earlier years in his lavishly illustrated (with rare art) opening essay, and Ralph Bakshi contributes his memories in a sincere Introduction. All in all, its a lot of fun!

Cartoon Monarch: Otto Soglow and The Little King edited by Dean Mullaney

If you’ve ever admired the art or illustrations of cartoonist Otto Soglow, this book is a must-have. Over 400 pages filled with Little King Sunday strips, including a sampling of his associated characters The Ambassador and Sentinel Louie, with a thorough biographical introduction by Ohio State University comics historian Jared Gardner that includes numerous rare Soglow images, including animation art, advertising pieces and commercial illustrations. A beautiful package, a wonderful collection.

The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD-Inspired Satirical Comics edited by John Benson

If you collect any and all things related to classic E.C.’s original Mad comics – here is the missing link! This 192-page trade paperback is the last word on the bakers dozen of Mad knock-offs produced by Marvel (Atlas), Charlton, St. John, Harvey Comics and others in 1953-54 pre-comics code era. Editor John Benson compiles the best of these humor comics – with art by Jack Kirby, Norman Maurer, Howard Nostrand, Dan DeCarlo and others – and writes an informative and lavishly illustrated essay on the history of these books and their creators. Hilarious fun, The Sincerest Form of Parody is sincerely great.

Ahhh, the joys of Nancy!
Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy is one of those acquired tastes. Deceptively simple, it’s the comic strip stripped to its bare essentials. The end result may be

Ah, the writing life — or a book gone wrong, or right, I don’t know.

Hat tip to my newest blog find, a most worthy site for inspiration: The Improvised Life.

Check it out. Great photos, easy reading. A site that always gives you a quick take-away.

As a kid, I was a fan of Krazy Kat, the brick-tossing Ignatz Mouse, Offissa Bull Pupp, and company. I was too young for the original George Herriman newspaper strip, but enjoyed the cartoons and, later, learned to appreciate Herriman’s singular world view.

Too cool for words, though original, healthy, and legitimate are a good start.

Thankfully, there are pictures.

Those must have been righteous days, when you could open up a newspaper and find Krazy Kat and Nancy, originally drawn by the sublime Ernie Bushmiller.

Here’s a favorite, passed along by my pal, illustrator Greg Ruth.

Actually, calling the above illustration a favorite doesn’t quite do it. More like, a recent obsession. I printed it out, now it’s hanging on my wall by the computer. An arm’s length away. I want to write a book that answers that illustration. I want a version of that reflective moment on a book cover.

It reminds me of the ending to one of my favorite films, Bob Rafelson’s “Five Easy Pieces.” For my money, it’s one of the great endings, ever. For the clip below, I’m thinking specifically of the scene in the bathroom at 2:30 - 3:30, though of course the full five minutes are worth watching, as Karen Black (Rayette Dipesto!) in anything so often is. But the real killer is Jack Nicholson catching a glimpse of himself in that mirror, turning away, the head’s slight turn, thinking, wondering, and finally coming back it (the reflection of his self) in that mirror: Who am I? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going?

We all understand that scene. Even Nancy. And I can watch it over and over again.