Complaining about someone else’s opinion, though? That is most definitely whining.

How about you grow a pair and own up to your opinions like I do?

Dan thinks a movie is mediocre. Imagine that. You’ve only posted that in 3 or 4 other topics. How about you tell Apodacalover to stop whining and make it an “official” Apodaca comment?

Bowfinger was a thoroughly mediocre movie, Greg. Not to mention the fact that Eddie Murphy didn’t do any actual character development. The acting served the plot, and that’s not top-tier acting. It’s also not cynical to say that any televised awards show is thusly invalidated as any sort of critical measuring stick. I mean, it’s a giant advertising platform! That’s why they televise it!

Re: “Apodacalover11″-
It appears I’ve officially carved out my niche on the internet. I don’t think I like it.

Film critics don’t bump current releases off their “Best Of” lists when a new dvd of their favorite movie comes out.

And yet bizarrely, there was a top 100 films of all time list, and Shawshank Redemption didn’t appear on the one a few years after it’s release, but did on the one over ten years after.

As far as the reprints: I think there’s a major difference between Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus and the Professor’s Daughter. The former is a repackaging of material that’s been available in a variety of forms for longer than most of the readers here have been alive. The latter is a reprint of an album previously unavailable in North America, and previously not in English. I’d say there’s a strong case to be made for translated works of that nature.

For the record, I did put the Fourth World Omnibus on my personal best of list (which shouldn’t be confused with the meta-list which was the subject of Greg’s post). The addition of color and the order in which the issues were reprinted changed my understanding of these comics, greatly increasing my esteem for what Kirby was doing in them. That’s the reason it made my list; the nice packaging didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t sufficient to warrant a spot in the top 10 of 2007 (at least by my criteria).

One personal rule of mine is that genre work usually is plot-driven, while non-genre work is character-driven. Not that “plot-driven” means the characterization isn’t good. Plot-driven stories can have excellent characterization, in fact.

If it’s fiction that stuff happens in it, you bet it’s genre. If it’s fiction that just shows you that characters’ life, it’s probably non-genre or art.

I don’t think there is anything inferior or shameful about being genre either. In fact, I usually prefer painful dental treatment than reading non-genre novels.

By the way, Watchmen and Sandman are both “genre”, IMO.

Lucion
I’m with Sandy. I like “Best of” lists, not because I need to validate my own favorites, but because I am looking for comics I might have otherwise overlooked.

I have horses in the race. So there is some validation for me.

But I’ve been actively seeking out and reading stuff on the list, and I’m finding a lot of really quality material – Much of which I’ve never heard of, or at least never registered with me before.

Isn’t saying “genre fiction” just a way of putting down something that the critic doesn’t think is a worthy genre? Everything has a genre–the word “genre” just means “type”–but if you create a Bildungsroman in comics form you will probably not be slapped with the “genre” tag as dismissively as if you create a comic in a traditionally “low-brow” genre like the Western.

And, as I think you proved when you listed your hypothetical Best Picture contenders, putting a bunch of things from different genres creates for an interesting list–one that seems strange to us probably because we’ve been trained to think of genres so narrowly and in such isolation.

Your other point, though, about reprint books being on a Best Comics of the Year List? I am okay with that, but it’s probably not the most logical thing in the world. Film critics don’t bump current releases off their “Best Of” lists when a new dvd of their favorite movie comes out. But some do list “Best Movies” and “Best DVDs” as distinct categories, and maybe we should more consistently think in terms of “Best Comics” and “Best Reprint” from now on.

I just find the eclectic nature of the best-reviewed books of the year interesting, and although I like the breakdown he did in the third link up at the top, I would have liked to see even more analysis. That’s all.

As all Dick did is do what he said he’d do – compile everyone’s top books of 2007 lists and see which books showed up on the most lists.

While I understand that perhaps you’d like to see a different approach, which is fine, you wanting to see a different approach is not a criticism of Dick’s system, no?

To wit, you don’t criticize your smoke detector because you want a detector that can pick up carbon monoxide, right?

But that’s what it appears that you’re doing here, and again, I doubt that’s your intent, but that’s how I (and I think others) read the piece, that you’re knocking Dick’s list because it didn’t measure what you would like to see measured.

EDITED TO ADD: Funky thinks that you are just complaining solely about the concept of Top Tens, which I guess I can see. In that case, fair enough!

At the end of the day it’s Dick’s list and he can put on it what he likes. I have no idea what process he used, but perhaps the most important aspect of a given work is how much it touched or affected him. The first two are deep, the next two tickled his nostalgia bone. Like Greg, I’d be interested to know the hows and whys, but at the very least this list and others like it are a good starting point for someone to then go seek out more information on a particular title.

I like the Oscar comparison, but sometimes we can get a bit carried away with our need to catagorize things.

No, what he said was specific to the Golden Globes. Even the people winning don’t take them seriously — that’s why they’re all drunk at the show. The reason they have so many categories is to they can invite more famous people to their awards show.

I think the Oscars SHOULD recognize comedies, I guess.

I absolutely agree that All Star Superman isn’t as good (or even close, Stealthwise is wrong, wrong, wrong) to Exit Wounds. But that’s just one example… It’s certainly possible to pull out, say, IRON FIST, which is much better than ESCAPE FROM SPECIAL.

And I’m fine with our critical acceptance of older works, too. I guess that format plays a larger role in comics criticism than criticism of other media. The (really, really good) Fourth World stuff isn’t new, but it’s presented in a color hardcover with an introduction by Grant Morrison, making it an overall more enjoyable package than the greyscale reprints from a few years back.

So the works are graded on packaging. But packaging is really important to comics, where clarity of art and immediate “Gosh! Wow!” first impressions are so important.

And yes, Michael, I’m aware of what every award given out to any entertainer is. I disagree with the choices awarders nominate almost all the time, but I still like the categories.

I always love that some people who comment here think I loathe superheroes and some people here think I love them too much. That’s always fun. I disagree with you, stealthwise, because I did not like the Bizarro story that took up two of the four All Star Superman issues in 2007, but it’s still a very good comic book.