The Comics Journal

I intend to give the first round of essays by Brian Doherty, Jeet Heer and Ben Schwartz as much time as they deserve, which is to say next to none at all.

The announcement of Ben Schwartz’s anthology of comics criticism was greeted with a modicum of excitement and expectation which was swiftly followed by a certain incredulity that such a book could be put together at all. Few would dispute the need for such a collection and any disagreements will inevitably boil down to questions of editorial philosophy as well as the individual choices. The retrospective nature of The Best American Comics Criticism (BACC) would suggest that the quality of the final compilation (or lack thereof) can be laid largely at the feet of the editor.