The Prime Works

Movies

1. The Matrix
2. Jackie Brown/Kill Bill
3. Fight Club
4. Zodiac
5. Collateral
6. Escape From New York
7. Rocky Horror Picture Show
8. Paterson
9. El Mariachi
10. Goodfellas
11. I’m Not There
12. From Dusk Till Dawn

Television

1. The Simpsons/Futurama
2. The Shield
3. Mad Men
4. Community
5. The Venture Brothers
6. Neon Genesis Evangelion
7. Cowboy Bebop
8. Star Trek: The Next Generation
9. LOST
10. Blackadder
11. Stargate: SG-1
12. M*A*S*H
13. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia
14. Monster
15. Breaking Bad
16. The Goodies
17. Clone High
18. Seinfeld
19. 30 Rock
20. Firefly

Literature

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
2. The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, by HP Lovecraft
3. LA Confidential, by James Ellroy
4. Hitler, by Ian Kershaw
5. Animorphs, by KA Applegate
6. Discworld, by Terry Pratchett
7. “The Cat In The Wall” by Edgar Allan Poe
8. Horrible Histories, by Terry Deary
9. The Cornelius Quartet, by Michael Moorcock

Video Games

1. Mass Effect
2. Metal Gear Solid
3. Gears Of War
4. Left 4 Dead 2
5. No More Heroes
6. Saints Row 2
7. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
8. Max Payne
9. Pokemon Red/Blue
10. Ratchet & Clank
11. Spec Ops: The Line
12. Super Smash Bros
13. Portal

Comics

1. Shortpacked!
2. 8 Bit Theater
3. Order Of The Stick
4. Watchmen
5. The Sandman

The Secondary Tier

Movies

1. Uncut Gems
2. Independence Day
3. My Dinner With Andre
4. Che
5. First Reformed

Television

1. The Wire
2. Deadwood
3. Battlestar Galactica (Ron Moore)
4. Scrubs
5. 12 oz Mouse
6. The Young Ones
7. The Sopranos
8. Dragon Ball Z
9. Arrested Development
10. Twin Peaks
11. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
12. Death Note
13. The Office
14. Hannibal

Literature

1. On The Road
2. Blood Meridian
3. Hamlet

Video Games

1. Jak II
2. The Sims
3. Fallout

Comics

1. The Dark Knight Returns

As you can see, I’ve expanded my list from last year. Not just in that I’ve added some things onto the main list that I realised I’d forgotten, but in that I’ve now created a second list for works less important to me but still worth acknowledging. This is because I’ve found myself often revisiting the list for a reason I didn’t expect: it helps stimulate my brain to create something new. Firstly, I look at the list and notice the entries that I haven’t written a definitive, last-word essay on (including works I have written about but not to my own satisfaction; my essay on 8 Bit Theater is a weak early effort). More importantly, I have discovered that my personal canon is actually composed of works that do what I want to do. Earlier this year I threw up my hands and decided fuck it, I’ll write a story ripping off Stargate: SG-1 as close as I felt could get away with, and I was startled to discover that this was basically what I’d been wanting to do this whole time and even served as a more effective exegesis of my feelings over the show than the essay I wrote. I uncovered the potential, much more interesting story I’d seen in it; in terms of technical stuff, I assigned specific, clear goals that the characters were consistently trying to achieve as opposed to how the characters of Stargate simply react to things. Even better, I used the strengths of the franchise to compensate for my weaknesses and vice versa. The show is very bad at creating unique, memorable characters; I happen to be very good at that. They gave me a universe to play in, I filled it with people.

This is basically what I’ve gotten out of having a Personal Canon in general. I look at it and think “how can I build on the work these things have already done?”. This is where having a secondary tier actually comes in really handy, because something about these works caught my eye and there’s a lot of bullshit I can prune out (this is especially true of the things in my prime canon that I inexplicably love despite being terrible, like Gears Of War). Granted, some of the stuff in my secondary tier is there because I like it a lot and think about it often but wouldn’t put it in the top tier (Uncut Gems and Che especially), but the majority is there because I can use it to get somewhere I want to go, even if I can’t see how or where yet. I’ve had the question of how to create new things bouncing around my head after The Sandman showed me how to end old things. Something I’ve learned after five years of relentlessly analysing art is that, as wonderful as analysis is, it’s not a great place to start when it comes to creating. In fact it’s probably the worst. Creation is more of an impulse that serves some immediate emotional need; where analysis helps is in shaping that impulse into its most effective form (Peter Jackson’s Get Back ends up showing this process pretty well). This list, conversely, can serve as a guide to creation. It’s a pre-existing set of parameters for things I know work.