Best American Comics 2008

I just finished reading The Best American Comics 2008, edited by my favorite cartoonist ever, Lynda Barry.

There is plenty of monkey-dom to be had in this book. For starters, Lynda Barry draws herself as a monkey in her intro.

Then there's this little fable called "The Monkey and the Crab," which is disturbing on multiple levels and teaches us all important lessons on sharing and death. Or something like that.

You can read the entire comic via PARTYKA.

Also included is a kind of creepy story of children who live in a dumpster by Martin Cendreda, who has a cat named Monkey, according to his author bio.

There are several comics from Matt Groening, including plenty of Will and Abe explaining their adventures in Bali and how they saw "these really cool monkeys there, but we couldn't touch them or play with them because they might hurt us really badly." In another strip, Groening tries to calm his son's professed fear of monkeys.


In Joseph Lambert's "Turtle Keep It Steady," a retelling of "The Tortoise and the Hare," one of the animals grooving to the beat in the last panel is a monkey.

That's not to say all the good stuff has monkeys. "The Teacher's Edition" by John Mejias is most excellent. "Seven Sacks" by Eleanor Davis is really good, too.