The Comics Canon Project

Talking about the all time greats

Every great art form has a canon.

If you wanted to study the great works of Western literature there’s hundreds of lists and university courses dedicated to talking about the great works that have lasted for centuries. Even film, a relatively newer art, has something like a canon.

Comics are even older than film, with the earliest comic strips cropping up in the mid 19th century. But they’ve never been given the same level of respect or interest as other mediums. Comics aren’t taken as seriously, for some mysterious reason.

OK maybe the reason isn’t entirely mysterious

I’d like to play a small part in changing that. So I’m starting the Comics Canon, a place that catalogues the great all time works of the medium. These are my guidelines:

Creators Over Characters 

Comics has produced a lot of great characters, but all of them have their fair share of bad issues and bad runs (or bad decades). The comics I focus on will be centered around the work of a creator or a creative team, rather than being organized around a character (for example, Chris Claremont’s X-Men rather than X-Men 1-300).

Runs Over Issues

One-shot issues are great, but the real joy of comics is the longer runs. Comics are serialized and runs make a greater impact. I have no problem covering one shots here and there, but my focus is going to be on creative teams that worked on the same character for at least 12 consecutive issues (give or take a fill in issue)

 Bad Issue Exceptions

Comics fans are completionists. Even the best runs have an occasional bad issue. These would still be part of the Comics Canon, in the same way that a great book with a dull chapter would be part of the literary canon.

Anyway, I’m probably not the first person to propose a Comics Canon. This is mostly just an excuse for me to write about all of my favorite comics. If you’ve got a favorite comic run you want me to cover, let me know in the comments. For now, we’re starting things off with “The Amazing Spider-Man” by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.