*I am writing a different review here than I did initially because I didn't get it quite right in my initial assessment*

I had high expectations for this. I have read many of these compilations, and look forward to their publication. I usually read them in a day or two, and come away from them with a whole laundry list of artists to check out.

This one did not do that for me. And it wasn't that the comics were too weird or surreal, because they weren't (and anyway, I like surreal. Michael Deforge is one of my favorites.) It was just that while some were legitimately good, many were merely passable (and forgettable,) and a few were painful. Like, poorly drawn (on purpose, it seems?) and poorly lettered to the point of being illegible. Some seemed interesting but I physically couldn't read them because the lettering was either a) too tiny or b) completely illegible chicken scratch.

So maybe this bad drawing / bad handwriting stuff is just a style I don't get? I found it unpleasant either way. ( )

Guest editor Ben Katchor has terrible taste. This is the worst volume I have read in this series.

There are maybe three dozen pages in this 400 page brick that are worth reading. Kudos (and exemption from the one-star rating) go to Joe Sacco, Bjorn Miner, Eli Valley, Sam Alden and Bill Griffith. Everything else suffered from illegible lettering, horrible art, gibberish writing and/or pure crappiness.

I think this volume makes a good case for having a committee choosing the entries so there is more of a check on what goes into the book. When the majority of the entries presented are outliers, one has to wonder if the mission statement implied by use of the word "best" has been discarded in order to create a showcase exclusively for the avant garde regardless of the quality of the work. There might be a real truth-in-advertising violation going on here. ( )