The Comics Journal #296 Yes, another year has past and it's time once again for the Best of the Year Issue.  Best picks from comics luminaries Kim Deitch, Lynda Barry, Anders Nilsen, John Porcellino and many others complement the Best of 2008 master list compiled out of the all picks.  This issues also features a great bunch of interviews:  Lynda Barry, Dash Shaw, Frank Quitely, David Hajdu and Mike Luckovich.  R.C. Harvey will fill you in on some great comics that made 2008 "a very good year."  There's nice full clor preview of the first book of C. Tyler's forthcoming book, You'll Never Know. And then there's a whopping 35 page comics section of fine Finnish comics, including an eleven-pager by the one and only Amanda Vähämäki that should whet your appetite for her soon to be released collection, The Bun Field, as well as reminding you that, if you haven't already, you need to get your hands on a copy of Drawn and Quarterly Showcase 5. 

This international anthology of comics from around the world has much to recommend it both in terms of scope and quality.  Cover artist Ron Rege, Jr.'s contribution is the first publication of his latest project, Cartoon Utopia.  Here he is producing what are, in effect, sermonistic lectures in spritual psychology (or, perhaps, lecturistic sermons on pyschological spirituality) in comics form; whatever one might decide to call them, they are both uniquely fascinating and uplifting, and, really, are worth the price of admission.  The Dylan Horrocks, the first new work by him we've read since we don't know when (what? Atlas #3, was it?), is so good that it makes us mad that this is all we get. Dylan's work has been so sporadic over the last decade that we suspect that there are plenty of folks out there who aren't familiar with his work.  If you fit this description, then you should change your status with all due speed, and picking this up might just be the ticket.  Then there are the two! – count them – contributions by Finland's greatest export, Amanda Vähämäki, rendered in her trademarked delicate yet precise pencils.  The remainder of the contributions are all quite worthy, and will have readers asking themselves why they haven't seen work by these creators before and/or where they can find more:  Belkis Ayón from Havana; Edmund Baudoin from Paris; Igor Hofbauer from Zagreb; André Lemos from Lisbon; Aleksander Opacic from Belgrade; Maurizio Ribichini from Rome; and Sam Seen from Bangkok.  Recommended!