Lynda Barry, ed., _The Best American Comics 2008_

OLDER AND SLOWER, yea verily, so much older and slower indeed that I am a full year behind in the Best American Comics series -- there is really no excuse for that, is there? How could one possibly not get around to reading comics? I'm also now two years behind in Bst American Non-Required Reading.

I've been a fan of Lynda Barry since the early '80s and her (so far as I know) first book, Girls and Boys, right up through One Hundred Demons, so I was expecting to enjoy the volume, and I did, but the selection I enjoyed the most was Barry's introduction, with its homage to Bil Keane.

Everything else was at least interesting, but there was only one really intriguing new discovery for me, that being Cathy Malkasian, whose sepia fable "Percy Gloom" had an original child's-tale-for-adults quality.

Unsurprisingly, Barry also has a great eye for true and moving comics about childhood.

Long live Marlys!