Go check out Dick Hyacinth's metalist of the best books of 2007. He took as many lists as he could, gave each reviewer an equal number of points (so books ranked high on shorter lists got more points than those on longer lists) and added up the points--using a mathematical formula I came up with. I'm a bit of a math geek sometimes... and it was a good way to kill half an hour. The list is interesting for a number of reasons, but here are some of my thoughts:
* Two books in my top ten made the meta-top ten, which is pretty decent. I do regret not including Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto in my top ten, though. It should have been there.
* Six of my top ten made the top 100. But then again, I didn't really expect The Boys, Thunderbolts or Gødland to make the meta-top 100. Am a little surprised that The Nightly News didn't make it as it got a lot of praise when it came out. But then again, I think it made my list partly because I got it in December, which meant it was still recent in memory for me. Had I gotten it in the summer, I may have forgotten about it. Not to say it didn't deserve its place, but stuff that's more fresh in your memory is going to have a better shot at the list.
* Three of my almost-top-ten books made the meta-100.
* Casanova is only #35? What the fuck?
* Dick is almost certainly right when he says that ACME Novelty Library #18 would have ranked higher than 52 had it come out a little earlier in the year, especially in the direct market. I got my copy in a bookstore weeks before Diamond shipped it. Plus, how many of the lists Dick looked at were made before the end of 2007? One of my biggest pet peeves are lists created before the year is over for reasons like this.
* I still don't get you people's weird love of All-Star Superman.
* I've read six of the top ten and plan on getting at least another two for sure, probably three. The only top ten book I have no interest in is Buffy Season 8.
* Interesting to see that a book like Y the Last Man ranked so high thanks to non-comics sites. Is this a case of comics sites not liking it or that it's a book that was taken for granted? I've yet to read past the first trade (which didn't do much for me), but I imagine there are a lot of really good books that got passed over simply because everyone is so used to them. Perhaps demontrated by Jack of Fables making the meta-100 while Fables didn't? The newer spin-off ranks because it's more fresh? (Or it could just be a better book...)
Others can almost certainly come up with better things to say about this meta-100. But, go check it out, see how some of your favourites rank with the collective comic criticism community.
Again, regular Thursday post coming later.
Phoenix #5 annotations
5 hours ago
