Yesterday, the Jan. 3 issue of The Onion appeared in my mailbox, and I was especially intrigued by the fact that the issue's "Words" feature was devoted to its (well-informed) staff's picks of "The Best Comics of 2007."

Noel Murray, Keith Phipps, and Tasha Robinson came up with the following six:

Pascal Blanchet. White Rapids. Drawn & Quarterly. $27.95.
The Luna Brothers. Girls: The Complete Collection. Image. $99.99.
The Fillbach Brothers. Maxwell Strangewell. Dark Horse. $19.95.
Gilbert Hernandez. Chance in Hell. Fantagraphics. $16.95.
Jack Kirby. Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus. DC. [actually, several volumes, the first two of which were released in 2007 at $49.99 each]
Rick Geary. The Saga of the Bloody Benders. NBM. $15.95.

The text of the feature is also available online -- accompanied by (at the moment) 149 comments that may lead you to further thoughts on the topic. (Warning: The Onion is not an all-ages publication, and neither are its discussions.)

By the way, the Geary is just the lastest of his "Victorian Murder" series, which began in 1987 and all of which I recommend:

1 A Treasury of Victorian Murder (Mary Eleanor Pearcey, E.W. Pritchard, The Ryan Mystery)
2 Jack the Ripper
3 The Borden Tragedy
4 The Fatal Bullet (assassination of James Garfield)
5 The Mystery of Mary Rogers
6 The Beast of Chicago (H.H. Holmes)
7 The Murder of Abraham Lincoln
8 The Case of Madeleine Smith
9 The Bloody Benders

(When a book club I belong to was reading Erik Larson's highly praised The Devil in the White City about Holmes [born Herman Webster Mudgett], I brought in The Beast of Chicago, which brilliantly conveyed details of events outlined in the Larson book.)