The Hooded Utilitarian recently asked readers to vote on the top comics (books, strips, and gags) of all time. They ran the list of the top 115 vote getters. Here are the top 10:
1. Peanuts, Charles M. Schulz [50 votes]
2. Krazy Kat, George Herriman [46 votes]
3. Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Watterson [45 votes]
4. Watchmen, Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons [31 votes]
5. Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman [28.125 votes]
6. Little Nemo in Slumberland, Winsor McCay [25.5 votes]
7. The Locas Stories, Jaime Hernandez [24.5 votes]
8. Pogo, Walt Kelly [24 votes]
9. MAD #1-28, Harvey Kurtzman & Will Elder, Wallace Wood, Jack Davis, et al. [23.75 votes]
10. The Fantastic Four, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, with Joe Sinnott, et al. [22.333 votes]
All are worthy of being included, I think. My top 10 picks only have one match with the above list, though:
1. The Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge Stories, by Carl Barks (#12 on the list)
2. The Little Lulu Stories, John Stanley, with Irving Tripp (#62)
3. Robert Crumb
4. Daniel Clowes
5. Jim Woodring
6. The Locas Stories, Jaime Hernandez (#7)
7. The EC Comics Science Fiction Stories (#96)
8. Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, by Gilbert Shelton (not on list)
9. Kamandi, by Jack Kirby (#11, kind of, since Kamandi was in Kirby’s Fourth World universe even though he didn’t encounter characters from New Gods or Forever People)
10. Jean “Moebius” Giraud’s oeuvre (#34)
And I have a zillion runners up who, on any other day, might have made it onto my top 10: Seth, Chris Ware, Al Capp, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Will Eisner, Vaughn Bode, Charles Burns, Rand Holmes, Jack Davis, Peter Bagge, Frank Frazetta…