The 20 Best Graphic Novels of the Decade (2000-2009)

Great List but a few too many sci-fi picks in my opinion...what about Allison Bledchel's Fun Home? or the "Highschool Chronicles" of Ariel Schrag? Good human stuff and sorely missing from your list!

How can you not include Alison Bechdel's Fun Home on this list?! Was it not enough that it was critically acclaimed as one of the best nonfiction novels of 2006? Or is it against policy to include female (lesbian...gasp!) authors in a list dominated by men? On the other hand, putting Blankets at the top of the list was an unexpected surprise.

The absence of Fun Home was the first thing that struck me. I see I'm not the only one.

All guys except for Pia Guerra. Just one female? eesh.

i can overlook all the graphic novels collecting previous graphic novels... but ghost world came out in 97.

No Art Spiegelman's In the Shadow of No Towers?

No David Mack? His "Kabuki" books are visually stunning and the story is amazing!

I don't like this list. First, most of these are collections-some for series that aren't done, and nominating only the first Omnibus of Brubaker's Cap stuff leaves out the fallout that happened in the wake of Cap's death, which was at least as interesting as what led up to it. Secondly, having shoved Scott Pilgrim down the throats of most people whose opinions I respect, the simple fact is that Volume one was really good but four was the best. Thirdly, Blankets was powerful, but number one? Really? This decade saw Black Hole collected, In the Shadow of No Towers, Grant Morrison doing great work on unconventional stuff like Seaguy and Seven Soldiers, Alan Moore doing the ABC line (I'd nominate Promethea before the League, though) and there's room for WILDCATS on here? (Chester Brown's Louis Riel, Brubaker's Sleeper and Criminal with Sean Phillips, if you're looking for "Wickedly Funny," Garth Ennis's The Boys, Love and Rockets Volume II, etc.)

And it's really funny (to me) that both The Ultimates and Brubaker's Cap are on the list. At one point in Brubaker's run, he has Cap address anti-French sentiment, where he talks about the French Resistance and how they never stopped fighting, even in their Government did. HE then goes on to describe how the ridicule of the French irritates him as a result. (Which sounds a lot more like Captain America.) Besides, it was much better when Warren Ellis made fun of "Ultimate" Cap's famous quote in the also sadly overlooked Nextwave: Agents of HATE.

These comments don't help anyone with anything, but I really am sick of arbitrary subjective lists with hyperbolic titles like the Best X of X. How about "I really liked these, though I don't have the breadth to speak on the subject definitively"?

Weak. ahn... Fun Home not included? You must be kidding. And I agree with Long Winded Rant: "How about "I really liked these, though I don't have the breadth to speak on the subject definitively"?"

It's pretty surprising that none of Joe Sacco's stuff didn't get on the list. What about PALESTINE or SAFE AREA GORAZDE? These have real clout. They're more heroic than any superhero because they're real.

Nice list.
Drew

Look, I love "Ghost World", but both the "Eightball" issues it was originally serialized in and the collection were released in the 1990s. I know they re-released it with a new cover when the film was released, but by that logic "Watchmen", "V for Vendetta", "American Splendor" and "Peanuts" should all be eligible for this list as well.

What about Persepolis?

It seems that everyone has a bone to pick with this list because it isn't indie enough, isn't real enough, focuses on capes too much, isn't diverse enough, overlooks politics, etc.

My objection to this list, at its core, is that too many of the recommended volumes are out of print (i.e. Absolute Planetary and Authority, to name two). Since both are available in trades with the final volume of Planetary coming soon, that's a minor flaw, but a flaw nonetheless when the listed editions sell at collector's prices when available.

On a broader note, ANY list of this sort is going to omit someone's favorite book. ANYONE will find some reason to critique it - having read Fun Home and Ariel Schrag's work, I can say that neither really affected me enough to think of them among the best comics of the decade, but that's true for A LOT of comics.

Simply put, this list is really mainstream. Everyone who reads comics knows this. However, that doesn't mean that it doesn't present people with a LOT of very good comics to get them interested in it.

This isn't CBR, Newsarama or a comics blog - it's a culture and lifystyle magazine. As such, it makes perfect sense for Paste to recommend Captain America, The Ultimates (set in an entirely different continuity, to address the comments of the person who took issue with the conflict between Millar's Cap and Brubaker's Cap), Hellboy (which is pretty awesome regardless), The Authority, Fables, All-Star Superman, Planetary, Y, etc.

A lot of these books are the titles that got me back into comics, that had me reading enough that I checked Fun Home and Exit Wounds and Joe Sacco's work out from the library because I found out about them by going to the comic shop and getting Fables and Preacher and Transmetropolitan and Sandman and The Invisibles and so forth.

IMO, most of the commenters are expecting a bit too much from a list that, to me, really just seems like a jumping-off point, a diving board if you will. No list can effectively address everyone's concern or represent everyone's cultural / gender / political / etc. identity.

At the same time I can look at this list and say that there are no lesbian creators on it, I can also point out the sheer predominance of white men from America and Europe - that's the large majority of the comic-creating population outside of manga, manwha, etc. That isn't to say GLBT / women / people of color don't create comics - just that they're vastly outnumbered by white dudes.

The sad part of all this is that this list is one of the better ones I've seen - it has a large number of titles with relatively broad / mainstream appeal and even if the list does have all the edginess of saying that "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" was the best album ever, as Rolling Stone did back in 1986, that doesn't mean that these comics aren't worth reading.

Just some comments for thought.

As a graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies, in White River Junction, VT, I cannot let this travesty of a list pass by. This was the decade that brought graphic novels to the forefront of the bookstore and artists rose to the occasion creating some of the best comics we have seen in this country since the hey day of the medium in the early 20th Century.

The final half of your list hints at a few of the gems of the decade, but overall lacks a thorough understanding of the term "graphic novel." Most of these collections are simply trade paperbacks, or serialized cut and paste superhero mash ups. Where IS Fun Home, Persepolis, Asterios Polyp, Black Hole, The Golem's Mighty Swing, Berlin volumes 1 and 2, Summer Blonde, etc...? So many choices for graphic novels that actually don't pander to 12 year old male power fantasies.

I'm especially passionate about this because without this decade's explosion of talented cartoonists creating top notch work, I wouldn't have been able to get an MFA in Sequential Art. The school I attended wouldn't exist and I would mocked by the average person for being a cartoonist instead of treated with a little more respect thanks to the artistic work of THIS decade's cartoonists.

If anything, your list treats the leaps and bounds of respect that our hard work has won us with utter contempt. Superman and Captain America may not even have comics careers much longer thanks to the shift in comic reading that graphic novels have caused.

On a final thought, where's the Manga? All the immature stuff aside, there have been several good manga printed and reprinted, see: Red Colored Eulogy or anything Tatsumi has done.

If Paste, a publication I normally respect, needs someone who knows something about independent and artful comics to write/blog for you, I would be happy to give my two cents.

This list relies on work by (as others note, almost exclusively white male) creators who really made their marks in the previous decade, but ignores those who rose to the top in 2000-09. For the mainstream, the work of Matt Fraction on Iron Man or the X-Men is a notable ovesight, and the absence of Bechdel's Fun Home, or Lynda Barry's What It Is, or Satrapi's Persepolis, or lots of great work by other women is pretty glaring. And if you want to emphasize the ongoing work of masters, where are the Hernandez Bros., Crumb, or Sacco, all producing first rate work in this period? I'm all for praising great work in the mainstream, but this list looks pretty narrow given what was done in the last decade.

I'm glad to see Wildcats 3.0 on this list. While it's probably not very well recognized by fans of comics, I think it's going to be one of those books that's profoundly influential to creators of comics.

Which is something you can already see in Ex Machina, only it has to do with politics and not economics.

I think any fan of Apple will get a weird 'this could be happening' vibe out of it.

And Sam Carbaugh wins the award for most condescending and pretentious post of all time.

Well done, professor.

Douche

Lesbian....gasp? you posted that in 2009, shut up unless you are a lesbian with three penises on your back everyone has seen it. being gay isn't in your face anymore. maybe the author just didn't like it as much.

it was a bad ass novel.

ITS SURPRISE TO SEE NO BATMAN NOVELS .THE PREVIOUS TWO DECADE HAD GIVEN SOME OF THE BEST BATS STORIES.MAYBE DC SHOULD WORK ON THEIR STAR CHARACTER AGAIN

I might consider adding "100 Bullets", "The Losers", "Wanted" (Just forget about the craptacular movie), "Invincible" and "The Walking Dead" just to name a few.

I think you forgot Alison Bechdel's -Fun Home.