great post by Heidi Mac on the New Aristocrats of Autobio Comics in the wake of Chris Ware-edited BEST AMERICAN COMICS:

THE BEAT » Blog Archive » Can anyone here tell a story?
Writes Ware, “I think we’re at a point here where it’s becoming clear that comics can accomodate a variety of sensibilities and wildly divergent dispositions, and I wonder whether the more dramatic mode of presented scenes and situations is necessarily the only approach.”

Comics as a medium not a genre? Daring! Thus, give a formalist the reigns and he’ll chose other formalists. No surprise there. Or as Ware continues:

“But even a casual flip through of the pages of this book will demonstrate a highly individual approach by each and every artist all with the aim of getting at something new or, more preceisly, real.”

While I enjoy wallowing in the misery and pointlessly of the Real, the problem here, I think is that the history of great literature is full of the UNREAL and that’s what missing from The Usual Suspects. Like I said, it’s not that there’s anything in this volume (unlike last year’s odd batch) that doesn’t belong, it’s just that it’s all so, so real.

Grant Morrison had made this wake-up call some years ago; i’ll link the intervew here if i manage to find which one was that.