My Top Ten Comics of 2020

It’s been a strange year, in many ways. And one such way is that it has upended how a lot of entertainment has been consumed. The most obvious change this year has been with film, where the experience of going to the cinema has largely given way to watching stuff at home on streaming services or after purchasing from iTunes. But even with comics there has been changes, with me barely getting out to the comic shop this year, instead getting stuff sent to me by mail at my LCS. And as such I’ve shifted a bit in my reading tastes, becoming less connected to the weekly new comics haul (since even my new releases arrive at a slight delay with shipping) and inclined more towards catching up on older stuff and reading OGNs/collections. But with being at home for so much of the year, I’ve still managed to read A LOT of stuff.

A regular reminder that my qualifier for eligibility is that the comic is either a graphic novel released in its entirety this year, a foreign language work released in English for the first time this year, or if it’s an ongoing/limited series, that at least 3 issues were released this year. For 2020 in particular, that’s disqualified quite a few things, as it feels we had some major players like Sea of Sorrows and Home Sick Pilots only have one issue out at the time of writing this list. But they’ll be books to watch out for in next year’s rankings to be sure!

10. PULP

Much has been made of the format of Pulp, the Western/noir mashup from the powerhouse pairing of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. Long champions of the single issue format, their choice to lean into the OGN model sparked much chat about this increasingly being the future for comics. But aside from that discourse, it shouldn’t be overlooked that the comic contained within these hardcover pages is great. A story about a former Wild West outlaw, now an old man living in1930s New York struggling as a writer, selling pulp story reworkings of his own life and experiences, it’s another pristine exploration of pained humanity and bad decisions that this team does so well. I’ve not read Reckless yet, though, saving that for Christmas, and that might knock this out of the list!

9. KILLADELPHIA 

This was an early lockdown standout for me. It seems buzz on this was quite quiet during its initial single issue run, but particularly on the build-up to the release of the Volume 1 collection, it started picking up more buzz and momentum. And with good reason. It’s a smart new spin on vampire lore, using a vampire narrative as a prism through which to interrogate heirarchies of class and race. And Jason Shawn Alexander’s art is just next level good, be it in the immersive, intimate detail of the human characters or in depictions of the vampires that are proper frightening and monstrous. I can’t wait to read the second volume, and am a little sad I have to wait until 2021 for it!

8. WICKED THINGS

Giant Days has become one of my all-time favourite comics. But I was always behind the curve on that series, reading it in collected volumes. I still have the last volume to read, actually. And so with Wicked Things, the new miniseries from John Allison and Max Sarin, set in the same universe and seeing the supporting character of improbable child detective Charlotte Grote spinning off into her own yarn, I wanted to be right in at the ground floor with the single issues. As it happens, my biggest disappointment with this comic is that it IS a miniseries, as I already feel like I could happily read 40+ issues of Charlotte’s adventures, digging deeper into the quirky world of celebrity detective culture that this series opens up. It has that Giant Days comedy brilliance, but Allison and Sarin also do a great job of setting up genuine stakes and peril to up the ante of the drama.

7. REDFORK 

I’ve talked before about this top notch Appalachian horror from Alex Paknadel, Nil Vendrell, Giulia Brusco, Ryan Ferrier and James Maddox feels like a thematic cousin to Mountainhead. Developed separately and simultaneously, but with many similar ideas and plot turns, and then you factor in the fact that in both cases it’s writers from the UK looking in from outside to comment on strangeness in the American (or, in my case, Canadian) heartland. But where Redfork really excels is in how it brings this community to life, digs into the factors that have blighted the place and the people within it, doing what a lot of the best horror these days does by getting to the monstrous stuff from the angle of real life darkness that’s relevant to the lived experience of many. Alex has had a strong couple of years with the output he’s been delivering, but this may be his best work yet.

6. DAREDEVIL 

By this point I believe I am well established as a fan of Daredevil, but I’ll admit that following the conclusion of the seminal Waid/Samnee run, I drifted away from the comics. But this run from Chip Zdarsky and Marco Checcetto, among other artists, has brought me right back, emerging as arguably the best title Marvel is currently producing. It was already noteworthy last year, where I remarked on how it was a series being slept on. But one year down the line and that is even more the case, as the story has gone from strength to strength, with Zdarsky giving us some compelling exploration of what’s going on inside Matt Murdock’s head, as well as prime fodder for The Kingpin and other members of the supporting cast. I feel it’s starting to get more recognition now, but here’s hoping that 2021 is the year where even more of us acknowledge how consistently great this run has been.

5. UNDONE BY BLOOD 

In many ways, Undone By Blood works as a nice double-bill with Pulp, which featured earlier on the list. Both are comics that play with a two-pronged narrative, one featuring an old hard-boiled Wild West tale, with another presenting a harsher reality at a later point in the 20th Century. In this case, the latter-day strand is set in the 1970s, and the connective tissue of the two threads is that the protagonist of the 1970s arc (Ethel Grady Lane, an instantly compelling character) is reading the Wild West story as a novel, which we experience in both comic and prose form. And given how great Pulp was, it’s not lightly that I say that Undone By Blood is the superior of the two. The all-star creative team of Lonnie Nadler, Zac Thompson, Sami Kivela, Jason Wordie and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou are firing on all cylinders here. Sami’s work has never been more beautiful and evocative. Zac and Lonnie display a master of wordsmanship in those prose entries that makes me feel like I ought to pack in this whole writing lark as clearly I’m an amateur. This comic pulls off the trick of making me love both storylines equally, where whenever we cut to one, I’m anxious to get back to the other, while still being gripped by what I’m reading. Quite possibly AfterShock’s best ever comic.

4. BLUE IN GREEN 

I’m at a disadvantage in talking about Blue in Green here, as having already talked at length about the comic when writing about the work of Ram V, I don’t know how many more ways I have left to say that it’s brilliant and essential reading. Back when I first heard about the release of a new comic from the creative team of Grafity’s Wall, a horror comic at that, this became my “event comic” of 2020. It certainly delivered on expectations. Frightening, and not in the way you might expect, getting under your skin and giving voice to the unspoken anxieties and insecurities you have buried deep down (or that I have, at least). In fact, though the plots are completely different, in a lot of ways Blue in Green felt like a fitting comics medium companion piece to I’m Thinking of Ending Things, in the particular bad vibes it evoked. The whole creative team shines, here, with Ram V giving us some immaculate writing and some of the most resonant internal monologue I’ve seen in a comic in forever, Anand RK displaying a whole new facet of his talents with a breakout performance and some of the most distinctive visuals of the year, and Aditya Bidikar flexing his muscles with a masterclass in just how creative a force in a comic the letterer can be when it comes to shaping mood. A haunting comic that lingers long after you’re done reading.

3. VENUS IN THE BLIND SPOT 

I initially wasn’t sure about including this one, These are mostly old Junji Ito stories, including a couple which I have read previously through unofficial translations. But this is their first time collected in this volume, the first time officially translated into English for most of them, and with new color pages and elements to make this collection a new, distinct product from Viz. Contained in these pages are some of the greatest Junji Ito short stories ever, including Enigma of Amigara Fault, The Human Chair, Billions Alone (formerly known as the catchier Army of One) and The Licking Woman. All intensely disturbing tales with truly horrifying imagery that will stay in your brain. But possibly what I enjoyed most in this collection was a story that’s not scary at all, an autobiographical comic called Master Umezz and Me, chronicling Junji Ito’s lifelong love for the work of mangaka Kazuo Umezz. Here, we get so much insight into Junji Ito himself, as well as some nice commentary on the appeal of horror and chasing entertainment that scares us.

2. THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH  

This comic kicked my ass. Built on a killer premise – what if we live in a world where things become more true the more that people believe in them, and that thus in this age of conspiracy theory reality is in greater danger than ever before? – the execution is even more frightening and compelling than you’d imagine. The first issue was a pristine establishment of the concept, but then each subsequent issue has hit like a haymaker, shining a light on something that makes me angry or upset then making me afraid of it too. James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds and Aditya Bidikar have gifted us with a comic that feels truly essential, where every chapter is a must-read and something you immediately want to talk to people about. If anything, even though it’s clocking in at #2, if anything this could be underrating it. And that’s because, at just three issues in, this series is just getting rolling. And if it keeps on going at this level of quality and building momentum as it continues to unfold, this could ultimately emerge as one of the great comics of this era. It already has that vibe of something really special about it. We’ll see where things go next year!

1. SUPERMAN’S PAL JIMMY OLSEN 

This comic ranked very respectably last year based just on the first few issues. And then, after that, I let the issues build up in my to-read pile, me buying them without actually getting round to reading them. Eventually, I had a little stack piled up and decided to do a catch-up one nice, sunny day. I blasted through them, and the reminder of just how fantastic this series is hit me like a mack truck. This might be my favourite Superman-related thing in any medium I’ve experience since All Star Superman. Jimmy Olsen is my favourite superhero of 2020. I love Steve Lieber’s fresh, modern take on the character (while still capturing some of the traditional quirks), while writer Matt Fraction manages to make him goofy and likeable and still the kind of exciting adventurer that Superman would want to be his pal. The comic is laugh-out-loud hilarious, with each issue containing at least a couple of guffaw moments, but that shouldn’t distract from how intricately plotted this all is, too. I bought the whole thing in single issues, but I’ll confess: I bought the graphic novel as a gift for a friend, and part of me wanted to clutch on it myself, just to have it in my bookcase. Because perhaps more than anything in the last several years, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen feels like it could become an all-time canon great book for DC, something they ought to keep in perpetual rotation.As always, here’s the annual tally of the best-of-the-year winners, from 2010 through to now…

• 2010: Scalped
• 2011: Scalped
• 2012: The Underwater Welder
• 2013: The Manhattan Projects
• 2014: Southern Bastards
• 2015: Southern Bastards
• 2016: The Sheriff of Babylon
• 2017: Batman
• 2018: The Immortal Hulk
• 2019: House of X / Powers of X
• 2020: Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen

And that was 2020 in comics! 2021 is already loaded with exciting comics, and a few potential front-runners for next year’s top prize. I can’t wait to see how it all pans out!

My Top 20 Comics of 2017

It’s been a strong year for comics!  DC has continued to kill it with its Rebirth line and more, with their Batman books in particular kicking ass across the board.  Marvel were off my radar for a bit, save for the occasional standout like the excellent Kingpin miniseries, but have made a big-time comeback late in the year with a flurry of quality titles in their Marvel Legacy lineup, which if they keep up could be serious contenders in next year’s rankings.  As usual, Image has maintained a balance of continuing standout ongoing titles and launching exciting new books, though I was sad that previous list-topper Southern Bastards was so sporadic in its release schedule this year (albeit for good reason) that I ended up having to drop it from my rankings… hopefully it’ll return to prominence in 2018.  But other indie companies had impressive years for me, too, with Aftershock and Vault Comics launching some impressive debuts worth keeping an eye on, like Monstro Mechanica and Maxwell’s Demons, respectively, and Black Mask and BOOM! Studios putting out a wealth of titles that became contenders in this year’s rankings.  There were enough notable releases that it wasn’t too hard expanding my usual Top 10 to a Top 20…

20. BLACK HAMMER
19. AQUAMAN
18. ROYAL CITY
17. DOOM PATROL
16. PUNISHER: THE PLATOON
15. BATMAN / THE SHADOW
14. THE DREGS
13. BEAUTIFUL CANVAS
12. DOCTOR STRANGE
11. THANOS

And here is my top 10 for 2017!

10. SHORT ORDER CROOKS

This one was a late entrant, largely due to the fact that, rather than coming from a publisher, it came from Kickstarter.  I’m really bad at keeping up with reading the comics I back on Kickstarter, especially when they’re digital pledges, so despite reading and enjoying the first issue ages back, I didn’t get round to catching up on issues 2-4 until recently.  And I’m glad I did.  Christopher Sebela has put out some quality work this year (I belatedly caught up on the first volume of HeartThrob, which was so great I wish I could retroactively insert it into my 2016 list), but this may be his best.  It’s a tale of heists and turf wars in the wild world of food trucks which truly centres on a passion for cooking which can really be read as a passion for comics or any creative endeavour.  George Kambadais was a breakout artist for me this year (small press oneshot Swift very nearly made it onto this list too), and colorist Lesley Atlansky brings out the best in his work.  Letterer Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou rounds out an all-star team on top form.  It makes me sad that every publisher apparently turned this project down, as it’s just the kind of book we should be seeing more of, but I’m happy the team got it out there in some format.

9. DETECTIVE COMICS

When DC Rebirth started, this book got lost in the shuffle for me.  I mistakenly assumed that I was already getting my fill of Batman titles and didn’t need another one.  But when the buzzing word of mouth finally did make me jump onboard, I was so glad I did.  James Tynion IV and a variety of gifted artists have, with this series, put together the best team comic on the market.  The plotting is just so well paced, with various subplots meticulously bubbling in the background at any one time, and each member getting their turn in the spotlight where their brewing drama comes to a dramatic head.  Everyone on the team matters and enhances the dynamic of the book.  Among other things, this title has (re)stated the case that Batwoman should really be considered an A-list hero, reminded me that Tim Drake was an amazing character and MY definitive Robin when I first got into comics, and made me give a damn about Clayface.  And Detective Comics also excels in its long-term plotting, with stuff seeded early on now paying off in dividends a year down the line.

8. GODSHAPER

This had the best lettering of any book I’ve read all year.  It’s not common to lead with lettering in a review, I know, but it was so impressive and gratifying to see Colin, whose work I have long been familiar with, rise to the challenge of guiding our eyes through labyrinthine layouts and showcasing various forms of speech and song.  Of course, the rest of the team are no slouches either.  Si Spurrier has explored around these themes of prejudice and the marginalised being labelled as worthless while being exploited for their usefulness in his other work, but this was his most refined example, feeling like a culmination of the work leading up to it: a world that was frustrating and heartbreaking but ultimately uplifting.  And Jonas Goonface’s vibrant artwork just blasted off the page.

 
7. EAST OF WEST

An old favourite that has been a perennial on this list for the past few years, it’s become hard to find new ways to express how consistently excellent Jonathan Hickman’s magnum opus is.  Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin continue to be one of the very best art teams in comics, bringing to life a world of epic scope and substantial gravitas.  It’s another book where I find myself thinking a more frequent release schedule might have seen it place even higher, but we got enough installments to maintain its place at around the same level it was last year.  But this ever-reliable workhorse of the Image Comics roster is now approaching its endgame, and next year will likely be its last chance to make an appearance.  So, it’ll be interesting to see if the future classic will go out with a bang!

6. EXTREMITY

Daniel Warren-Johnson is doing career-defining work on this book.  Anyone who has taken one look at his output up until now was already aware that he is a fantastic artist, his work richly expressive and layered with impeccable craft and skill.  And that mastery of design carries over into Extremity, with evocative world-building and characters so visually arresting that you want to grab a pen and draw them yourself.  But what might surprise people (even if it shouldn’t, he’s shown chops in this discipline before) is just how excellently written it is, too.  Extremity is a powerful parable about the toxicity of revenge narratives and a cutting condemnation on the cyclical destruction of war.  It’s a book that is angry, sad, and ultimately just has a big, open, vulnerable heart.

5. GOD COUNTRY

Donny Cates has blown up big time.  He’s putting out two of Marvel’s best comics, and seems primed to break out even bigger in 2018, one event comic or banner title away from solidifying himself in the A-list in a manner akin to Scott Snyder in 2011 or Tom King in 2017.  But if you haven’t already, it’s worthwhile going back to read his breakout comic from earlier this year, God Country.  You read this, and you can’t help but think, “Everyone involved in this book deserves comics superstardom.”  Geoff Shaw’s dynamic, epic imagery is balanced with Jason Wordie’s delicate, muted colour palette, which along with Donny Cates’ nuanced storytelling crafts a world that swings between dizzying cosmic adventure and intimate family drama in a manner that brings real emotional heft.

 
4. THE BLACK MONDAY MURDERS

I was late to the party jumping onboard this book.  For whatever reason I wasn’t immediately grabbed by it, and it was in fact meeting colorist Mike Garland at Heroes Con and finding him to be a very nice man that prompted me to finally give it a try.  And I’m so, so glad I did.  It’s richly, skillfully coloured, for one, Garland’s aesthetic an ideal compliment to the detailed, textured visuals of Tomm Coker.  And the story is another magnificent display of world-building from Jonathan Hickman, one of comics’ true masters of the discipline.  The premise of the occult underbelly of the world of global finance has allowed Hickman to weave a rich tapestry of international banking factions and shifting allegiances, and each issue is a dense, meaty read that feels like a substantial experience on its own while also feeding into the tantalising larger mysteries unfolding.  Don’t make the mistake I did by sleeping on this book.

3. 4 KIDS WALK INTO A BANK

Writer Matt Rosenberg, artist Tyler Boss and letterer Thomas Mauer have crafted something truly special with 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank.  Every page is rich with visual and structural innovation in a manner that you get the feeling this book will be getting talked about for its techniques years from now.  It pushes the envelope in comics craft, but is more than just an exercise in technique. 4 Kids Walk Into a Bank has character at its core, and it wouldn’t be the runaway success it is if it wasn’t for the fact that we like and care so deeply about the 4 eponymous children at the heart of the story.  Each one feels like a kid you might have known at school, or maybe even a kid you were.  Plus, this also manages to be one of the funniest comics I’ve read in ages, thanks to a rich selection of whip-smart lines and dynamite sight gags.

2. MISTER MIRACLE

The all-star pairing of Tom King and Mitch Gerads, along with letterer Clayton Cowles, produced last year’s #1 entry on my year-end list, Sheriff of Babylon.  And they very nearly repeated the trick with this follow-up, the more high profile assignment of getting to tell a new epic based on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World saga to mark the King’s 100th Birthday, starring one of his favourite creations, Mister Miracle.  But this is a dark riff on Kirby, drawing on the nightmarish, oppressive dread the Evil Gods seep into the comics page as previously explored by Grant Morrison in the likes of Final Crisis, but injecting it with a melancholy human flavour which is very on-brand for this creative team.  Mister Miracle is many things.  It’s a human drama about the feelings of inescapable despair we can feel in a world that seems broken and wrong, deeply relevant for our times.  It’s a character study of Scott Free, digging into the dark corners of his identity and making the subtextual implications into text, carrying them to their full, grim conclusions.  It’s a horror story, a Lynchian nightmare of an unseen evil spreading its malign influence over every interaction we see unfold.  It’s a mystery, a puzzle box where we can’t trust anyone and can’t be sure of what’s real and what’s imagined.  And it’s a love story, about how even when all else is lost or uncertain, Mister Miracle will always have Big Barda. Have I mentioned before that I love Big Barda?  As Mister Miracle approaches its second half, going into 2018, there is still much about the series that remains unknown, with many narrative cards still being played close to the chest.  But it says it all about the quality of the book that, even when unsure of where it’s going, I want to follow it through to the end no matter what.  Can this team just keep on making these 12-issue maxiseries’ forever, please?

 
1. BATMAN

Tom King tops the list two-years in a row, this time further cementing his dominance by taking the top two spots on the list!  I think I made the remark a few years ago, when talking about Grant Morrison’s run, I believe, that since Batman is the biggest comic in the American market, it’s nice when it can also be called the best.  And I feel I can say that in 2017.  I very nearly gave the top spot to Mister Miracle, but when thinking back on the year in comics, there is no title I enjoyed more consistently than Tom King’s run on Batman.  Let’s take a look back through Batman in 2017, shall we?  The year began with two-part palette cleanser “Rooftops,” a quiet exploration of the relationship between Batman and Catwoman, featuring pensive artwork from Stephanie Hans, that set the course for the year ahead by shifting the dynamic between Batman and Catwoman and allowing them to be together.  Then came gripping 5-part storyline “I Am Bane,” with a vengeful Bane coming to Gotham and tearing through Batman’s friends and foes alike in search of what Batman had stolen from him.  This was perhaps Bane’s best story since Knightfall, certainly the most formidable and dangerous he’s been since then, and also boasted some of David Finch’s finest work in years.  That was followed by a crossover with The Flash in “The Button,” a significant piece in the larger DC Universe puzzle setting the stage for the currently-unfolding Doomsday Clock, but also a chance for King and artist Jason Fabok to stage a thrilling mismatch showdown between Batman and Professor Zoom.  This was followed by one of my favourite single issues of the year, one I’ve already gushed about in my newsletter: “The Brave and the Mold.”  Regular King collaborator Mitch Gerads stepped in for this oneshot that saw Batman team up with my other fave, Swamp Thing.  After that, David Finch was back in “Every Epilogue is a Prelude,” which made headlines by featuring the pivotal moment where Batman proposes to Catwoman.  All this alone would be a year’s worth of developments in most titles, but Batman truly made the most of that double-shipping schedule, and so this was just the point where things started to get REALLY good!  What followed was “The War of Jokes and Riddles,” an 8-part saga which reads like this run’s best attempt yet to provide an evergreen bookstore market seller, featuring a largely self contained story and a rich selection of Batman’s iconic villains.  Mikel Janin here ascended to comics superstar status with some truly stunning work, while Clay Mann’s fill-in issues helped to build up longstanding joke villain Kite-Man into one of the most poignant, tragically human characters in the DCU.  Most would struggle to follow this arc, but King was right into the swing of things with “The Rules of Engagement,” a two-parter which made me a fan of Joelle Jones, doing beautiful art along with colorist Jordie Bellaire.  We then also got Batman Annual #2, which, far from containing light, throwaway fare you might expect in an annual, saw King and Lee Weeks tell a beautiful, heartbreaking love story chronicling the past, present and (possible) future of Batman and Catwoman.  By this point, my mind was already pretty much settled that this book would take the #1 spot, but then Tom King and a returning Clay Mann (front and centre rather than on fill-in duties, this time) put an exclamation point on the year with the brilliant “Superfriends” two-parter.  The first part features some of the most beautiful sentiments on the Batman/Superman friendship I’ve ever seen, with each explaining to their respective significant other how the other one is a far better hero and human being than they could ever be.  Then the second part, a largely conflict-free extended double date between Clark & Lois and Bruce & Selina, became another candidate for my favourite single issue of the year.  Seeing it all laid out like that, I don’t know how anyone could NOT choose Batman as the best comic of 2017!

Since I began doing this list, I’ve kept a tally of each year-end winner, and here’s the current list:

• 2010: Scalped
• 2011: Scalped
• 2012: The Underwater Welder
• 2013: The Manhattan Projects
• 2014: Southern Bastards
• 2015: Southern Bastards                                                                                               
• 2016: The Sheriff of Babylon
• 2017: Batman

And that’s us wrapped for another year.  I already have a bunch of 2018 comics launches I’m excited about, along with a few late startups from this year I’m eager to see hit their stride.  How will the lineup look next December?  Will there be some surprises?  I guess we’ll see!

My Top Ten Comics of 2014

Hello and welcome once more to my annual countdown of the Top 10 comics of the year. You’ll notice that, after last year’s inflated Top 20 list, I’m back down to 10 for 2014. That’s not to suggest that the quality of titles being released is in decline, but rather that I’ve probably been buying a little less comics this year, having to make some ruthless cuts to my pull list as having less and less free time to read through my comics has left a larger and larger pile of unread books to try to get to. That, and the fact that it took me ages to write that Top 20 list last year! 2014 has been another year of change for me, as while last year I talked a bit about how the number of Image titles I was reading had skyrocketed, this year I’ve had to drop a few of those. And while last year I said that I’d all but stopped reading Marvel and DC’s output, Marvel at least has made a big comeback for me, with an array of quality launches this year. Also noteworthy is the ascendancy of BOOM! Studios, with such quality output as The Woods, Memetic, Curse, Black Market and The Empty Man, and I’ve really been enjoying Oni Press output like The Life After and The Bunker. As ever, there are plenty of great comics I couldn’t fit into my top 10. Aforementioned indie offerings The Life After and The Woods, and other cracking indie titles like MonkeyBrain breakouts D4VE and Headspace, not to mention Image debuts like Spread, Wytches, Roche Limit and Deadly Class. Even some previous Top 10 mainstays like Batman, Saga and Sex Criminals, while maintaining a consistent quality, didn’t make the cut. Charles Soule wrote stellar comics for both Marvel and DC that came close to qualifying in She-Hulk and Swamp Thing respectively. Coming agonisingly close and actually being present in the list in an earlier draft was the delightful, charming, funny, surprisingly tender and emotional Dungeon Fun, by breakout genius Scottish creators Colin Bell and Neil Slorance. But what we’re left with is a collection of truly superb comics, some you may already be reading, others you should seek out. Let’s get right into it…
10. LEGENDARY STAR-LORD

I figured out numbers 1-9 on this list pretty quickly, but there was a real fight for this final spot on the list. Just take a look at that vast “Honourable Mentions” list above to show how many quality comics were in contention. But I think the main two that got closest were this year’s Guardians of the Galaxy expansions, Legendary Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon. Both were fun, action-packed titles, and I have a hard time deciding which one I loved more. Rocket Raccoon is just fantastic, Skottie Young is doing stellar work on that title, and it was perhaps the title that had the bigger immediate “WOW!” reaction of the two. But it’s Legendary Star-Lord that has grown on me even more over the course of their respective runs. Star-Lord is my favourite Guardian, and Sam Humphries has, in this series, crafted a version of Peter Quill that does justice to all iterations of his character. The surface level that immediately grabs you as the series begins is how spot-on a pastiche of Chris Pratt’s excellent cinematic portrayal it is, right down to the dude-speak and man-child party lifestyle. But as the series has progressed, Humphries has skilfully weaved what might have seemed like a soft character retcon to make it feel like an appropriate character evolution that stays faithful to the haunted, guilt-ridden moral pragmatist that starred in the definitive Abnett & Lanning Guardians of the Galaxy run. There’s even the inclusion of an updated version of transport/confidante Ship from the very earliest Star-Lord appearances from the 1970s. The bombastic artwork of Paco Medina is a revelation, and it’s his bright, energetic visuals that really hammer home the glorious comedy beats: from Kitty Pryde dancing in a giant banana suit to Quill on an awkward date dressed in a bad ’80s prom tux. Straddling a line between rewarding single-issue stories and steadily building up an intriguing overarching narrative, Legendary Star-Lord is a gem of a comic that makes a great case for why Star-Lord is a hero deserving of his own solo title.
9. EAST OF WEST

East of West has slipped a little from its #2 ranking last year. Don’t get me wrong, Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta’s sci-fi/Western opus still ranks up there with Image’s best titles and is always a book that gets read very soon after I get home from buying it at the local comic shop. If anything, the lower placement is reflective of not poorer storytelling, but more subtle storytelling, with Hickman and Dragotta carefully expanding the world and often replacing the more sweeping scope of the initial arc with a series of one-shots exploring the various nations of this alternate America. All were interesting to varying degrees, though at times this approach left me missing some of my favourite characters and wondering when certain plot beats would be followed up on. But when the various threads start to weave together and the individually-defined forces start to clash, you really feel a sense of culmination, and the sheer scale feels even more epic and breathtaking for the build-up that set it up. With what has been set up as of the latest issue I read, Hickman seems primed to take this world into even darker places as the narrative enters its next phase. But it’s the team of Nick Dragotta and colourist Frank Martin that continue to steal the show with each passing chapter. There’s not an issue that goes by where I don’t have to stop at least once and just marvel over the construction of a page. Still arguably the most visually stunning art team in comics.
8. ANDRE THE GIANT: LIFE AND LEGEND

I’ll get this out of the way: you don’t have to be a wrestling fan to love Andre the Giant: Life and Legend. All you have to be is a fan of fascinating life stories, realised with wonderful comics storytelling by Box Brown. But I’ve been a wrestling fan going back to when I was a little kid, albeit not so much lately. And the first person I can remember being a favourite wrestler of mine was Andre the Giant. The 7-foot-plus tall athlete was, pun intended, a larger-than-life presence, and this graphic biography does a great job of conveying that, with various interviewees sharing accounts of the sheer size of the man and the unique life he led as a result of it that range from the charming to the breathtaking. But his size, which gave him incredible fame and a livelihood, was also an incredible burden. Most obviously, it was a medical condition, one that was slowly killing him. But, as Brown astutely depicts, it also negatively impacted his life in a whole series of constant little inconveniences and humiliations that wore him down, the cold fact that in one context, he was “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” but in another he was just a freak. The biography is more a highlight reel than an exhaustive analysis, but we do get some excellent snapshots of his life. We see how he used to get lifts to school from Samuel Beckett as a boy in France, and we get a look at his time on the set of The Princess Bride. But most effectively of all, Box Brown paints a portrait of an era of American history that holds endless fascination for me: the 1980s wrestling circuit and all the eccentricities contained within. Informative, poignant, and often laugh-out-loud funny, when I read Andre the Giant: Life and Legend back near the start of the year, it became probably the first definite fixture on this list and its place has stayed secure ever since.
7. STRAY BULLETS: KILLERS

What a fantastic year 2014 has been for fans of David Lapham’s seminal crime epic, Stray Bullets. With no new chapters published in some time, and the series arguably never getting the widespread acclaim and recognition it deserved, it seemed in danger of being consigned to history as an unfairly forgotten comics classic. But then Image Comics signed a new deal to revive Stray Bullets last year, prompting the series to be posted up on ComiXology. Then, this year, the original run was finally brought to a conclusion with Stray Bullets #41, followed by the whole series being released in a deluxe omnibus called “The Uber Alles Edition,” allowing a whole new generation of readers to get absorbed into this dark, ruthlessly bleak saga. And then we got Stray Bullets: Killers. David Lapham has slipped effortlessly back into this seedy world and its inhabitants, like slipping into an old pair of comfy slippers, not missing a beat. As always with Stray Bullets, Killers seems to operate on the fringes of the crime genre, looking at how regular people on the fringes are impacted, or how their moral decisions can have a ripple effect. The backbone of Killers has been the blossoming and ultimately wilting romance between recurring protagonist Virginia and Eli, two flawed characters who make mistakes, but who we come to deeply care about, and whose happiness we become highly emotionally invested in. A happiness which, if Stray Bullets has taught us anything, shouldn’t be expected to last. Killers is often a low-key series, and as such even now is still to some degree being overlooked, not always getting mentioned amongst the other great Image titles of the past year. But Stray Bullets: Killers is actually better than most of them, and has produced some of the best single issues of any comic in 2014.
6. THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS

Last year’s #1 didn’t quite reach the same heights on this year’s list, in fact slipping to the ranking it held back in the 2012 list. But that’s hardly to suggest that writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra’s bonkers revisionist history tale of mad science gone wild is in decline. This is a series that continues to fire on all cylinders with big, crazed ideas. Talking dog Laika got her own standalone adventure in space. The original Albert Einstein from our Earth came back to our reality to confront his evil parallel Earth doppleganger, and we got to see the mad journey across countless realms he had to brave to return home. William Westmoreland joined the cast as a hardcase with an ear necklace who took on an elite alien killing machine and won. We discovered that Che Guevara and Fidel Castro had their brains replaced by evil Communist aliens. And it all built up to a take on the assassination of JFK (magic bullet and all) that was about as bonkers as we’ve come to expect. The visuals of this book from Pitarra and colorist Jordie Bellaire continue to be an absolute delight, packed with detail and character quirks that had so much to the fabric of the story and make it what it is. The cast and the scope of this series continues to get bigger and bigger, and so the year ended with The Manhattan Projects going on hiatus, with a promise to come back in 2015 with more character-driven arcs focusing on the various narrative strands one at a time. Whatever format The Manhattan Projects takes going forward, you can be certain that I’ll be onboard!
5. THOR: GOD OF THUNDER

For the sake of clarity, it’s Thor: God of Thunder – the 25-issue series drawn largely by Esad Ribic, which ended a few months back – which is my included entry on this list, rather than the newly relaunched Thor, also written by Jason Aaron. Not that the new series, isn’t really great – honestly, save for the new issue #1, it’s pretty much a continuance of the narrative from God of Thunder and part of the same overarching saga – but it’s just getting started, really, so if I must pick one title for inclusion on this list I’ll go for Thor: God of Thunder. This title was excellent right from its beginning, and during the “God Butcher” storyline quickly established itself as one of the crown jewels in Marvel’s lineup. But it was with Esad Ribic’s return to the series in “Last Days of Midgard” that the title reached its greatest heights, and Jason Aaron cemented his status as best Thor writer since Simonson. This storyline told two tales. One narrative was of an Earth in the future that had been left as little more than a ravaged husk, old King Thor left to defend it against Galactus come finally to claim the remains of the planet that had thwarted him for so long. Here we saw Ribic at his finest, depicting a Galactus that truly inspired awe and terror, underlining the impossible odds Thor faced in fighting him. The other tale was in a present that eerily foreshadowed the desolation of the future, with evil corporation Roxxon embarking on dangerous, morally repellent initiatives that bring them into conflict with Thor. Now, Jason Aaron has already made major contributions to the villains in Thor’s mythos without even using arch foe Loki: from introducing the terrifying Gor to giving real teeth and wickedness to Malekith in a portrayal that put his cinematic appearance to shame. So it’s not a statement I make likely when I say that Roxxon figurehead Dario Agger was the most vile, repellent villain Thor faced in the whole series. He was a great opponent for Thor, because he was not someone Thor could just hit with his hammer. He was a very Earthly evil, hiding behind lawyers and dirty corporate tricks and playing on a level even a heavy-hitter superhero like Thor struggled to keep up with. From beginning to end, Thor: God of Thunder was a delight: dramatic, scary, and often surprisingly funny. It seems like we should expect more of the same from the new Thor.
4. THE MULTIVERSITY

As a huge Grant Morrison fan, The Multiversity has long seemed like one of those dream projects, long discussed, that I’d forever been looking forward to, but felt was never going to actually come to pass. It’s literally been years that Morrison has been talking about this, so even when it appeared in solicitations, I still don’t think I quite believed it was finally happening. I don’t think I believed it until I held that first issue in my hands. But now that it’s launched and the first few issues have been released, I can gladly confirm that it has met and even exceeded expectations. This is Morrison’s trip through the Multiverse, at once a medley of returning characters and recurring motifs from his past work, and trailblazing into new terrain. The first issue was dizzying in scope, giving us a sense of a vast, mad DCU filled with depth and intricacies to a degree we haven’t really seen since the New 52 began back in 2011, and also giving us the return of CAPTAIN CARROT! After that we got a glorious, pulp-inspired rendition of the JSA, with great portrayals of the likes of Doctor Fate. Next up was a universe populated with the various legacy heroes following on from their iconic predecessors, like Morrison doing Jupiter’s Legacy better than Millar. But best of all was “Pax Americana,” drawn by art legend and frequent Morrison collaborator Frank Quitely, which saw the pair tackle the original Charlton heroes like Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and The Question that served as the basis for Watchmen. And, never one to shirk from ambition, and being quite bold as brass in the face of Moore’s criticisms about Morrison copying his work, Morrison and Quitely tackle head-on the very ideas of comics structure that Moore and Gibbons were exploring with Watchmen, and arguably pushes the envelope even further. Frank Quitely is possibly my favourite comic artist ever, so it’s not lightly that I say this could be some of his finest work to date, with the assured colour palette of Nathan Fairbairn acting as the perfect compliment to his style.  What I’ve loved about every issue so far, though I can also see it being a bit infuriating, is that rather than just creating a bunch of one-and-dones, Morrison has written a collection of fantastic issue #1s, all of which end having introduced us to an immersive world and leaving us desperate for an issue #2 that will never come. Such amazing craft and world-building throughout. This is a barmy celebration of DC’s Multiverse, and of superhero comics in general, done in a way only Grant Morrison can. Fantastic.
3. DAREDEVIL

Daredevil, as written by Mark Waid and over the past couple of years mostly drawn by Chris Samnee, is a comic that has existed on the periphery of my perception for quite some time. I’ve always been aware of the popularity and critical acclaim behind the title, and I’d read an issue here or there, but 2014 was finally the year I dove in, thanks to the Marvel NOW relaunch that relocated Matt Murdock to San Francisco, but largely kept the tone, cast and overarching storylines consistent from the previous volume. I used this opportunity to give Daredevil a try, and at last I was hooked. I went back and bought the whole of Volume 3 in the three deluxe hardcover editions, stormed through it, and was left kicking myself for taking so long to jump on the bandwagon. When looking at how influential this title has been – you could argue it has inspired a whole line of creative thought in Marvel’s publishing output, from a shift to shorter story arcs, to an increased spotlight on more stylised, cartoony artwork over more glossy, cookie-cutter fare – it’s easy to overlook just how brilliant Daredevil remains, and how it’s still setting the bar. So, let’s take a closer look at this year in Daredevil, in particular the title since it was relaunched as Volume 4. As stated above, while the locations are fresh, much of the themes are carrying on from what came before. And, in particular, this underlying notion that Daredevil’s bright, upbeat “new beginning” where he’d make a conscious decision to be happier was perhaps less secure than it first seemed that has been niggling away since Waid’s tenure began has really been scrutinised and drawn into the open. We got the first allusions to it in the two-part Original Sin tie-in (surely one of the best tie-ins that event produced) where we explored Matt’s mother, and discovered she suffered from post-partum depression when Matt was an infant. This exploration of mental illness built up to the high-point of the volume: the recently-completed “Purple Children” storyline, where longtime Daredevil foe The Purple Man sets loose a group of his illegitimate children whose more primal version of his mind-controlling powers may be even more potent than his own. On one level, this worked as a thrilling superhero story, with The Purple Man as scary and nasty as ever. But it also served as an excellent study of depression, and the continued stigmas surrounding mental illness that prevent people seeking help. Daredevil has long been one of the best developed superheroes in comics, and Waid manages to add a new dimension to his personality in an utterly believable, relatable way. And Chris Samnee’s artwork! Every page is a joy to behold, with clean lines packed with vibrant, kinetic energy, bolstered by the crisp colours of Javier Rodriguez and, more recently, Matthew Wilson. Even as a character who has had some rather definitive, iconic artists draw him, Samnee may have emerged as my ultimate Daredevil artist. Believe the hype. Daredevil by Waid and Samnee is simply the most perfectly-realised superhero comic on the shelves today.
2. THROUGH THE WOODS

While the marketing may have been focused on Original Sin and Future’s End, for me, right from when I first heard about it late last year, I knew that Through the Woods by Emily Carroll would be my “event comic” of 2014. The immensely talented Emily Carroll first came to my attention with “His Face All Red,” a chilling webcomic that to this day is one of the creepiest, most perfectly-structured horror comics ever. And so I was highly excited by the prospect of this graphic novel anthology, collecting “His Face All Red” in print for the first time alongside a collection of original short horror tales. After spending half the year breathlessly anticipating Through the Woods, I was very pleased when the final product lived up to expectations. Emily Carroll has a distinctive approach to horror, a lyrical quality that makes them feel like old fables, or forgotten children’s tales with a sinister underbelly. And like those children’s tales, her stories play with primal, universal fears: the loss of loved ones, or that those you care about are not all that they appear to be. Her artwork complements this vibe by being quite simple and childlike, but deceptively detailed and still capable of repellent, horrific imagery. Every story in the collection is strong, there’s not one dud here, but if I had to pick my favourites, in addition to the previously mentioned “His Face All Red,” I’d pick out “The Nesting Place” – a bloodcurdling mix of Cronenbergian body horror and Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt – and “In Conclusion,” the epilogue which deftly plays with the imagery of Little Red Riding Hood to bring the book to a simple but unsettling close that will linger in the memory and induce shudders long after reading. This year, we’ve been spoiled with a treasure trove of quality horror comics, so much so that I even wrote about it on my blog. But standing above them all is Through the Woods, and with this collection, Emily Carroll has cemented her status as the Queen of Comics Horror, second only to the legendary Junji Ito when it comes to using the comics medium to craft fear. And speaking of Junji Ito, I’ve learned that he has a new collection getting translated into English, due for a 2015 release. Now I know what my “event comic” of 2015 will be, then…
1. SOUTHERN BASTARDS

There are certain books that you know right away you’re going to love. Southern Bastards was one of those books, where as soon as it got announced at Image Expo, I knew it was going to be a must-read. Anyone familiar with my previous annual top 10 comics lists or with my blog in general will know that I absolutely adore Scalped, Jason Aaron’s masterpiece. It attained the #1 spot on this list on multiple previous years during its run, and I wrote some very detailed, lengthy blogs dissecting some of the stuff I love about the gritty crime saga. It’s the series that established Jason Aaron as one of my favourite writers, and has led to be following him onto his work with Marvel, which I’ve enjoyed. But with Southern Bastards, drawn by his recurring collaborator Jason Latour, Aaron seemed to be setting up a book primed to fill the void left in my comics-reading life by Scalped when it ended. And in 6 issues, the book has done just that. Hell, you could argue it had done that by issue #1. Given that you could suggest Scalped took a story arc or so before it really got going, you might even argue that Southern Bastards has launched itself out of the starting block even faster than that classic. Immediately, you could tell this was two masters at work, with a sweaty, sun-scorched atmosphere that immersed you in the Deep South. Craw County is simultaneously depicted as a tangibly awful place that no one would want to go near, but also so well-realised in its scenery and its diners selling fried pie that I kinda want to go there. Latour’s red-hewn colour palette helps a great deal with this distinctive atmosphere, as does his hard-bitten character design. This is a tough world, and one laced with pain and tragedy. At first, we think we’re getting one kind of story, and we imagine we’re seeing the well-worn story tracks laid out before us. But then that train is derailed in the most gut-punching, upsetting of fashions. “Upsetting” is something this book does well. I think I’ve had my heart broken reading this comic half a dozen times in as many issues. It feels like we’re still in the opening salvos of a much larger narrative, so the bigger picture of the plot may not yet be clear, but what truly elevates this comic are the characters. They feel nuanced, like real people (though maybe people you’d never want to actually meet), with Aaron once again displaying real skill for finding the bruised humanity in even the most seemingly awful of people. Six issues in, and already Southern Bastards feels like appointment reading, the book I know I’ll rush to read immediately as soon as I get it home, its cast of characters already nestling their way into my brain and into my heart. One thing that somewhat sets it apart from Scalped is acclaim. Scalped was one of the best comics ever, but it always felt a bit like an underrated gem, beloved by those who discovered it but overlooked by wider audiences. I would put it at #1 on my lists while beseeching people to give it a try. On the other hand, I write this knowing that Southern Bastards is almost a boring choice to top my list with, as everyone seems to be putting it in their lists. But sometimes a choice is obvious because it is absolutely deserved. And I for one am glad that the rise of Image Comics and creator-owned comics means that a comic as excellent as Southern Bastards can get the recognition and respect it deserves. Roll on year two!
And that’s that! What will next year’s list bring? Will Southern Bastards be the first comic since Scalped to take the #1 spot more than once? Or will one of the books currently slated for a 2015 release that I’m eagerly looking forward to, like Junji Ito’s Fragments of Horror or Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor, nab the top spot? We’ll have to wait until next December to know for sure. In the meantime, as ever, I’ll end with an overview of the annual standings, and what comics have made the #1 spot each year I’ve ran this feature on my blog….

2010: Scalped
2011: Scalped
2012: The Underwater Welder
2013: The Manhattan Projects
2014: Southern Bastards

Thanks for reading, everyone. Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!

My Top Ten Comics of 2012

We’re back a bit earlier this year, so apologies to any groundbreaking comic that comes out of nowhere in the last two weeks of December and blows me away.  This marks the third time I’ve run this feature on my blog, which I guess makes it a tradition of sorts.  There’s been an interesting shift in the tides as far as my comic reading goes.  Last year I spoke of DC’s dominance in my reading list, but one year on and the new car smell has faded from much of DC’s New 52.  The very best of the bunch are still going strong, but my DC reading list has thinned considerably in 2012, with yet more titles still hovering on the precipice of being dropped.  Marvel, meanwhile, has enjoyed a slight resurgence, with me sampling and enjoying a few of the Marvel NOW! launches and jump-on points.  But the big story of this year for me has been Image, who have been on a real roll, launching intriguing new titles left and right throughout the year and enjoying perhaps their best year ever.  Taking everything into account, the field of contention for the year’s best comics is so strong that, as of the writing of this intro, there are several comics still in the running to claim the #10 spot.  One honourable mention that was incredibly close to inclusion on the list was Thor: God of Thunder, by Jason Aaron and Esad Ribic, one of the best debuts of the year.  The only thing holding it back from a top 10 inclusion was that, with only two issues released, I thought I needed to see more of the series before I could fairly judge its merits in the context of a whole year.  Maybe in the 2013 list! Will the New 52 debuts that leapt into the top 10 last year retain their placement on the list?  Will the mighty Scalped emerge as the winner for the third year in a row?  Read on and find out!

10.  FATALE

The first Image comic to make the list, but not the last.  Fatale was the first in a wave of high-profile new series launches for the publisher, with the powerhouse pairing of Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips launching a new creator-owned slice of pulpy noir to accompany an impressive portfolio that already includes Criminal, Sleeper and Incognito.  After arguably the high-point of both their careers thus far with last year’s Criminal: Last of the Innocent, I was highly eager to see what the pair had in store next.  What sets Fatale apart from its stablemates is that the noir aesthetic is filtered through the lens of the horror genre.  Drawing in equal parts from Lovecraftian pulp and Satanic horror cinema of the 1960s and 1970s (The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, a good dose of Hammer Horror) the result has been a narrative that substitutes overt shocks for a gradual, creeping dread that steadily built over the course of the first arc.  The second arc, while not quite as focused, still retained some degree of this finely cultivated atmosphere.  The story revolves around Josephine, an apparently-immortal woman who is gifted/cursed with the ability to make any man fall madly in love with her if they so much as look at her.  The narrative has strands spreading along both the present and various eras of the past, becoming increasingly intricate as it goes along.  It’s a limited series, but Brubaker says it keeps on getting bigger as he realises there’s more and more story to tell.  The comics themselves are fine packages, published on nice quality paper, and complete with various fascinating essays about pulp and horror fiction by Jess Nevins.  Not as immediately gripping as some of the comics higher on the list, but a quietly commanding comic that certainly merits recognition.

9.  CHEW

After dropping out of the list last year, Chew makes a return to the top ten.  There was never really any substantial drop in quality; this offbeat series about a near-future world populated by various strange and delightful characters with food-based powers has always remained a consistently fun read, but perhaps that made it easy to take for granted as shiny new titles vied for my attentions.  But with the excellent Special Agent Poyo one-shot spinoff and the recent “Space Cakes” story arc, Chew has really upped its game and re-established itself as one of the most inventive comics on the market.  Everybody loves Rob Guillory’s gleefully demented artwork, such an integral component of the book’s identity that the very thought of a fill-in artist is horrifying.  But perhaps not enough credit is given to the deceptively intricate writing of John Layman.  With the way each issue works so well as a standalone caper, it would be easy to assume Chew is lightweight comedic fare.  But while there’s no doubt the book is funny – I laugh out loud at least once every issue – when you actually look at the ambitious narrative that has been crafted over the course of the series, it’s a surprisingly dense mythology.  We’ve now reached the halfway point of the series, and with the heartbreaking shock of issue #30, we could be heading for a change in dynamic for the second half.  But whatever lies in store, I’m certainly onboard for the long haul.

8.  WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN

I’ll confess, I’m shamefully late to the Wolverine and the X-Men bandwagon.  I almost picked it up at the beginning.  But that was when my interest in Marvel was at its lowest ebb, and when DC’s New 52 was making big demands on my pull list, and one of my favourite writers, Jason Aaron, was launching two new Marvel titles – Wolverine and the X-Men and The Incredible Hulk – in the same week.  I didn’t want to add more than one new Marvel comic to my monthly reading list.  So I chose The Incredible Hulk.  Now, I quite enjoyed Aaron’s run with the Green Goliath, it had some engaging ideas behind it.  But based on the tidal wave of positive feedback I’d been hearing for Wolverine and the X-Men, I began to suspect I may have made the wrong choice.  My decision to sample issue #19, billed as the Marvel NOW! “jumping-on point” for new readers, confirmed it.  Fun and accessible – two words I haven’t typically associated with X-Men comics – the strength of the issue encouraged me to pick up the previous few issues at my LCS, which included Wolverine and the X-Men #17, the Doop issue drawn by Mike Allred, perhaps one of my favourite single comics of the year.  That sealed the deal.  I went back to the start, and have been gorging myself on collected editions and back issues to get caught up.  What I love about this series is that every character earns their place.  No one is here because they were popular during Claremont’s run or whatever.  This is an ensemble piece, and every character – be they student or teacher – has something to contribute.  Which brings me to perhaps my favourite aspect of the series: the return to the school dynamic, previously crucial to the appeal of the X-Men franchise, but all too often overlooked amidst the more general superheroics.  I might have been late to the party, but better late than never!

7.  SWEET TOOTH

Much like Chew, Sweet Tooth is a series that has been consistently great each month since its beginning, but which slipped from my top ten last year, only to return to the rankings in 2012.  In the case of Sweet Tooth, the fresh burst of momentum has come from the title’s impending conclusion.  Over the course of this year, all the plot threads have been getting drawn together and paid off, with – as of the writing of this list – only one issue remaining before the whole series is wrapped up.  Jeff Lemire has been doing very well with his work in the DCU, but this post-apocalyptic drama about a young animal/human hybrid boy, a battle-hardened old man, and their travels through a wasteland ravaged by a global pandemic – both written and drawn by the Canadian cartoonist – remains his best ongoing series.  And it’s a title that I feel has long been unfairly overlooked.  It is so well-crafted, filled with heart and characters you care about, and Lemire does some really interesting, ambitious things with his art, his layouts, and at times even the very structure of the comic itself.  I’ve talked a lot about what a void in my comics-reading life the end of Scalped will be, but I might be almost as sad to see Sweet Tooth go.  On the plus side, I’ll be first in line to check out Trillium, Jeff Lemire’s follow-up Vertigo project in 2013.

6.  THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS

And to think, I almost didn’t buy this comic.  I’m afraid I must confess that, before The Manhattan Projects began, I wasn’t the biggest Jonathan Hickman fan.  I’d tried a few of his Marvel titles, but they’d ultimately left me cold.  But the buzz around the first issue, along with the enticingly high-concept proposal for the series – an Expendables-like team of famed scientists from history teaming up to engage in bonkers super-science – was enough to whet my appetite and make me give it a try.  I’m glad I did.  Each issue has at least one moment where I have to stop and say to myself, “That’s utterly demented!”  And, unlike lesser comics that I feel have been cynically engineered around an “Oh shock, WHAT A TWIST!” beat as a cliffhanger each issue, The Manhattan Projects manages to introduce a genuine shock revelation with each chapter in a manner that feels organic, because it tends to come from the characters and inform their portrayal.  This series has really made me a fan of Jonathan Hickman and his approach to storytelling, and since enjoying this I’ve picked up the first couple of issues of Secret, dipped my toes into his epic Fantastic Four run, and devoured The Nightly News, a wonderful comic that’s probably my favourite thing he’s done.  I’ve also become a fan of the offbeat artistic stylings of Nick Pitarra, whose visualisation of this crazy world have very quickly become definitive.  A gem of a book, that keeps going from strength to strength and getting better with each issue.

5.  SCALPED

What’s this!?  Scalped at last toppled from the number one spot!?  I assure you, its lower placing on the list year is down to the insane quality of the comics above it, rather than any decline in the series itself, which came to an end this year.  The year in Scalped began with the dramatic conclusion to the “Knuckle Up” story, before segueing into “Trail’s End”, the final storyline that brought the saga’s major storylines to a head while still managing to leave a few tantalising loose ends dangling at the end.  This final victory lap made for some highly rewarding reading for loyal Scalped readers, as some of the catastrophic events we’ve been waiting to inevitably happen for years finally took place.  But even as the end drew near, Scalped never felt like it had checked out early.  “Trail’s End” immediately threw us off-kilter by picking up after a leap forward in time, with the status quo of several characters suddenly shifted and us left playing catch-up.  And from there, Jason Aaron steadily turned the screw and built up a sense of dread and uncertainty where, even right up to the last issue, we weren’t sure how it was all going to end, who would live and who would die.  There ended up being quite a few surprises with the way all that worked out.  And one of the biggest joys of Scalped this year is that, if I can recall, all the issues released in 2012 were drawn by the mighty R.M. Guera, who added so much to the rough, rugged aesthetic of the book.  It will be greatly missed, and my 2013 Top Ten Comics list will feel emptier for its absence, but Scalped has, for my money at least, cemented its status as one of the greatest comic books of all time.

4.  IAIN LAURIE’S HORROR MOUNTAIN

There is perhaps no comic I’ve enjoyed continually rereading more this year than Iain Laurie’s Horror Mountain.  Given its lack of distribution it may be unlikely to appear on many other top ten comics lists this year, and that’s a great shame, as this is one of the most original, darkly inventive comics of 2012.  Horror Mountain is a standalone collection of shorts introducing various warped and depraved characters from the shadowy recesses of cartoonist Iain Laurie’s mind, with such unforgettable monstrosities as Captain Tits and Nazelbahhn.  The resulting end product plays a bit like a sketch comedy show broadcast in Hell.  By turns surreal, horrifying and strangely hilarious, Iain Laurie’s Horror Mountain is perhaps the purest, rawest expression of a singular creative voice in comics you’ll read all year.  Iain Laurie is one of the most exciting creators in comics right now, and I can’t think of anyone more deserving of having a breakout year in 2013.  I imagine his work best presented in the oversized hardcover format of X’Ed Out and The Hive, the recent output from Charles Burns.  The only thing preventing Iain Laurie’s Horror Mountain from getting higher on this list is that there isn’t more of it.  If you’re at all the kind of person who reads through these year-end “best of” lists to figure out what comics to buy next, then this should go to the top of your list.  BUY IT NOW. (Also available digitally for just $1!)

3.  BATMAN

Last year I predicted that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s fantastic work on Batman would earn the comic a high placement on this year’s list, despite the book not placing in the 2011 top ten: I opted to go for Scott Snyder’s Detective Comics instead, since the Batman run had at that point just begun.  Sure enough, here it is.  In the intervening 12 months, Batman has emerged as unquestionably the crown jewel of the New 52, not just in terms of sales, but in terms of quality.  The Bat-titles are strong in general right now – I currently read and enjoy Batman & Robin, Detective Comics and Batman Inc – but Batman reigns supreme.  The year got off to a blistering start for the title, with Batman #5 soaring out of the gates as an early contender for the best single comic book of 2012, not to mention one of the best single issues of an ongoing Batman comic I’ve ever read.  Featuring Batman trapped in a labyrinth by the Court of Owls and gradually losing his mind, with trippy, boundary-pushing artwork by Greg Capullo, this saw Batman pushed to the brink of defeat and despair in a way that shocked many readers.  This was the high watermark for the “Court of Owls” saga, and though it might have faltered slightly in the last chapter or two, for the most part “The Court of Owls” was a textbook example of how to tell a gripping, high-stakes Batman epic.  And now it looks like the all-star creative team is set to top it with “Death of the Family”, the currently-unfolding storyline featuring the hotly-anticipated return of The Joker.  Scott Snyder has done a stellar job of injecting a sense of genuine danger and peril into the “illusion of change” world of superhero comics, crafting nightmare scenarios where even jaded comics readers are left on the edge of their seats wondering how the hell Batman can possibly prevail.  And Greg Capullo is giving us perhaps the finest work of his celebrated career.  If Batman can maintain this dizzyingly high standard, I fully expect it to rank highly on next year’s list as well.

2.  SAGA

It has become very fashionable for everyone to gush about how amazing Saga is, and under that sea of hyperbole it might be easy to overlook how good this series actually is.  I’ve read the first issue several times now.  I read it two times in a row on the week I first bought it, before reading any of my other comics from that week, and I remember doing this because I was more excited about rereading this mind-blowing book than reading of my other purchases, none of which could hope to live up to Saga #1.  Since then I’ve periodically returned to that first issue, and recently downloaded it free on Comixology so I can reread it even more on my iPad.  Though I should clarify that the other 6 issues to follow have been great too, establishing a unique, vibrant sci-fi/fantasy world that feels like the basis of a fresh and exciting mythology I’m incredibly excited to explore and learn more about in the years to come.  The best of the crop of new Image comics to launch this year, Saga marks the return of Brian K. Vaughan to comics.  Given how much I adore Y: The Last Man and Ex Machina, that alone was enough to guarantee my interest.  But Vaughan doesn’t rest on his laurels, and isn’t content with just coming back to do what he did before.  No, he’s pushing himself with what could be his most ambitious narrative yet, a huge, sweeping space opera that incorporates various planets, species and cultures, a tale of star-crossed lovers on the run with their baby, and a long-running intergalactic war with unsettling real-world parallels.  But at its core Saga is a book about characters, and it’s amazing how quickly readers have come to care about Marko, Alana, Izabel, Prince Robot IV, The Will, Lying Cat and the rest.  And the art, oh God, how can I not mention the art!?  Fiona Staples has very quickly emerged as one of my favourite artists in comics, and of the breakout comic stars of 2012.  As artist and colorist (and occasional letterer when it comes to Hazel’s narration), Staples is crucial in giving the book its visual identity, crafting an aesthetic that often abandons hackneyed genre tropes where you’d expect to find them and instead crafts something new and often a bit crazy in its place, making Saga feel like no sci-fi or fantasy story you’ve ever encountered before, in any medium.  So integral is Fiona Staples to the book that, when the announcement came that the book was taking a hiatus of a couple of months in between arcs to let her get caught up on her art, the usual grumbling was pretty much absent, with a “Yeah, that’s fair enough, because a fill-in artist would be unthinkable” response proving to be the norm.  This is the comic I look forward to each month above all others.  When Scalped finished this year, I did not expect any comic to fill that “monthly comics crack” void.  I certainly didn’t expect it to happen so soon.  But Saga could very well be the spiritual successor to Scalped, and I can’t think of a better compliment to give a comic than that.

1.  THE UNDERWATER WELDER

After all that fawning over Saga, it might be hard to believe it only made it to #2 on my year-end list.  Believe me, pretty much right from its stellar first issue, I thought it had the “Best Comic of 2012” spot in the bag, and it would take a very special comic indeed to top it.  It’s a good thing, then, that The Underwater Welder is a very special comic indeed.  Essex County is Jeff Lemire’s masterpiece, and stands as one of the finest comics of the past decade, not to mention one of my all-time favourites.  So, as much as I’ve enjoyed Lemire’s work in the DCU, I had been eagerly anticipating The Underwater Welder – his next graphic novel for Top Shelf– since I first heard about it last year.  And while it doesn’t quite surpass the mighty Essex County, it could very well be Lemire’s most accomplished work since that breakthrough book.  It is very much a thematic cousin to Essex County, given its exploration of fathers and sons and life in a small community, but this tale – of an underwater welder still haunted by memories of a father he lost in childhood as his wife is expecting with a child of his own – takes an unexpected, Twilight Zone style twist into supernatural territory that sets it apart.  While many may know Lemire primarily as a writer, The Underwater Welder shows his outstanding ability as a cartoonist, with a nigh-unparalleled gift for wringing a surprising amount of emotional heft out of seemingly simple images.  Lemire’s artwork feels a lot more precise and polished than it did with Essex County, but still retains that rough, sketchy quality that some might find initially off-putting.  I, however, love it, with Lemire simplifying much of the extraneous detail and honing in on the emotional truth of a moment.  And it’s surprising how immersive the worlds he draws can become, as we build up an emotional investment in the characters and gain a strong sense of place from their surroundings: this book left me seriously wanting to visit Nova Scotia.  Lemire also does some impressive visual experimentation, composing some of the year’s most breathtaking page layouts for this story.  But more than anything else, what I adore about The Underwater Welder is its heart.  Lemire has a gift for telling stories that can feel nakedly emotional without ever coming across as sappy or maudlin, and he does it again with this moving, unconventionally heartwarming tale.  I wish Lemire all the best in his work on ongoing comics.  But I hope that no matter what heights his career as a mainstream comic writer takes him to, he will always find the time to come back to writing and drawing graphic novels like The Underwater Welder, because when he does projects like this, Jeff Lemire is better than just about anyone in the comics medium today.

My Top Ten Comics of 2011

It’s been another great year for comics, and if there’s been a dominant theme of the year, it would be change.  Most notably, we had the big change of DC relaunching its universe in September.  In terms of my comic reading, there are some changes as well.  Marvel has been all but entirely cut from my pull list, while the aforementioned relaunch has seen me now juggling more DC titles monthly than ever.  A lot of titles that featured in my top ten last year, such as American Vampire, Sweet Tooth, Chew, Morning Glories and even The Walking Dead, failed to make the cut this year, though with the exception of Morning Glories, I still read and enjoy all of them.  Other honourable mentions include high-octane Western The Sixth Gun, stylish fantasy romp Demon Knights, and The Strange Talent of Luther Strode, which might very well have made the top ten if more issues had been released this year.   And that’s not to mention the comics of this year that I’m still meaning on getting round to: I finally read Daytipper this April, and if I’d read it in 2010 it would have had a good chance at topping the list.  But enough about what’s not on the list, scroll down and take a look at what did make the cut!

10. AXE COP: BAD GUY EARTH

In terms of boundless creativity, there was no comic this year to match Axe Cop: Bad Guy Earth, a feat made all the more impressive when you consider it was written by a 6 year old.  Many comics have tried to match that sense of spontaneous, zany joy so effortlessly created by Malachai Nicolle and his artist brother Ethan, but none quite managed to pull it off.  Axe-wielding, psychotic cops, flying, fire-breathing dinosaurs, using the power of prayer to make everyone in the world simultaneously poop their pants, the ideas and high concepts are fired out at a dizzying rate.  It’s also absolutely hilarious, with a new laugh-out-loud moment on almost every page.  This might not pack the depth and nuance of the other entries on this list, but you’ll be hard pressed to find any other comic that has as much pure fun.

9. SECRET SIX

Overall, DC’s New 52 initiative this year has most definitely been a huge success.  Sales are through the roof, and I’m buying more quality DC comics each month than I have in a long time.  But there have been bad points about it too, and there is perhaps no greater casualty of this relaunch than the loss of Secret Six: not just in terms of the title being cancelled, but in terms of the events contained within it apparently being erased from continuity to make room for the unfortunate Suicide Squad relaunch.  I had said repeatedly that Gail Simone’s offbeat supervillain team book was perhaps the most consistently great title on DC’s publishing schedule.  But while the plots were solid, more than anything it was the characterisation of this oddball roster of psychos and outcasts that made this series soar, with them becoming less like a team than a family.  In this final year of this 36-issue run (not including the two mini-series’ that came before), the knowledge of the impending end gave Secret Six added poignancy, and the emotional weight of saying goodbye to old friends.  And it is goodbye.  I’m sure these characters will all show up elsewhere in the DCU (many already have), but they won’t be like they were here.

8. JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY

 

How embarrassing for Marvel that, with all the hype that went into The Mighty Thor – the relaunched series from the powerhouse pairing of Matt Fraction and Olivier Coipel that began just in time to tie in with this year’s Thor movie – it ended up getting totally upstaged in the quality department by Journey into Mystery.  Sure, Journey into Mystery might not have the sales to match, but discerning readers quickly figured out where to get their best monthly dose of Asgard.  Indeed, this series from writer Kieron Gillen and a variety of artists (most prolifically Doug Braithwaite) could very well be the best comic in the Marvel Universe.  The surprising thing about this series as it has developed is that it’s truly an ensemble piece, with characters quietly building up complex, interconnected histories.  But the star of the show is undoubtedly Loki, here reborn as a child.  He still has the witty, manipulative nature of his older self, but has not yet been corrupted by a lifetime of disdain, so to a degree his innocence is intact.  It’s a compelling look at nature VS nurture, and makes Loki one of the most intriguing protagonists in comics right now.  Journey into Mystery spent much of 2011 making lemons out of lemonade with a Fear Itself tie-in that was better than the actual event.  In 2012, Kieron Gillen gets to tell his own story, and I’m fascinated to see where that story goes.

7. SEVERED

It was a good year for horror, with Severed being the first of several entries in the genre to make it into my top ten.  This Depression-era period piece by co-writers Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft and artist Atilla Futaki stands distinct from much of the rest of the horror output of the comics world by actually being scary.  While too many creators mistake making a reader recoil from the page in disgust and say, “Eeeew,” for frightening them, Snyder and Tuft know how to turn the screws and leave us as readers with a knotted feeling of dread in our stomach, waiting for something terrible to happen.  The whole bear-trap sequence in issue #3 in particular was a masterclass in simmering dread.  The pace is slow, and over 5 issues Severed has taken its time on having the paths of our youthful hero Jack and the monstrous, cannibalistic child-killer known only as The Salesman cross and intertwine.  But this has worked wonders, as the meandering plot has allowed us time to grow truly attached to the characters, making the horrific things that happen to them genuinely upsetting.  There are 2 issues left, and though I know it’s unlikely to end well for poor Jack, I can’t look away.

6.  ECHOES

 

While we’re on the subject of horror, this miniseries by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Rahsan Ekedal operated with a deep understanding of what makes the genre work so well.  Like some of the best horror movies – The Shining and Rosemary’s Baby spring to mind – Echoes retains for as long as possible a sense of ambiguity over whether our protagonist is plagued by external horrors or simply their own hysteria.  I won’t spoil whether it turns out to be the former or the latter, as you really need to read it for yourself, but I will say that the nightmare loving husband and diagnosed schizophrenic Brian Cohn finds himself in is utterly compelling, not least because Cohn himself is so well developed by Fialkov that we grow to care about him and, in spite of the genre, invest in his well-being.  But a big part of Echoes’ success is the artwork of Ekedal, perfectly measured to maximise tension and make the horror feel tangible and real.  I can see this being a very successful, very scary movie in the future, but this is more than just source material ripe for the picking: Echoes is a quintessential horror comic, as its creators skilfully use the tools of the medium to draw its frights.

5.  CRIMINAL: THE LAST OF THE INNOCENT

Before I read this latest volume of the acclaimed crime series by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, the only exposure I’d had to Criminal was through the first volume, Coward.  I read that, and thought it was a good heist story, cleverly plotted and slickly drawn, but never felt desperate to try other volumes.  Perhaps because I read it around the same time I picked up the first volume of Scalped, which got a lot more of my attention.  But I don’t know what it was – perhaps my interest in the upcoming Fatale by Brubaker/Phillips, or perhaps the eye-catching cover of the graphic novel that drew me in when I was browsing for a graphic novel to try – but I decided to give The Last of the Innocent a go, picking it up as a last-minute Christmas present to myself.  I’m glad I did.  The Last of the Innocent is much better than Coward (which was good in its own right), not just in terms of the depth of the storytelling, but in the ambition of the visuals.  The two combine to give us a powerful tale of the cruelty of nostalgia, and the hell a man can create for himself while in search of something better.  At last, I’ve bought into the Criminal hype.

4. ANIMAL MAN

When reading about the various titles in DC’s New 52 relaunch, I expected Animal Man to be good.  I liked the work Grant Morrison did with the character, and reading books like Sweet Tooth and Essex County had already ensured that seeing the name Jeff Lemire on anything was like a watermark of quality.  But still, I was taken aback by just how good Animal Man was, standing out as one of the very best titles of the relaunch.  Perhaps it’s because, while Jeff Lemire’s storytelling is just as great as I’ve come to expect, with the family dynamic of everyman hero Buddy Baker and his wife and children acting as the heart of the book, the art of Travel Foreman took me completely by surprise.  It’s not been to everyone’s tastes, but I love it, his ethereal style adding an undertone of weirdness to even the more conventional scenes, but truly coming to life with the sequences of Lovecraftian monster horror.  When combined, the end result is one of the most distinctive titles of the Big Two.  I may have been taken by surprise after the first issue, but now Animal Man is a title I thoroughly expect to blow me away each month.  It hasn’t let me down yet.

3.  SWAMP THING

The other crown jewel of DC’s New 52, this one from the powerhouse pairing of Scott Snyder and Yanick Paquette.  While Animal Man was an unexpected pleasure, I had high hopes for Swamp Thing from the moment it was announced.  I hold the classic Alan Moore run in very high regard, ranking it as one of my all-time favourite comics.  So it is no small praise to say that Snyder not only lives up to the legacy of that landmark run, but expands on and enriches the mythology it established, finding new wrinkles and dark avenues that fit in so organically to the tapestry that it’s almost as if Alan Moore put them there.  But it’s not just Moore Snyder pays homage to, revisiting in new ways some of the original themes explored by Len Wein in the first ever Swamp Thing stories, restoring Alec Holland to the mix and examining who he is and what drives him when you take the big green plant monster out of the mix.  Paquette, meanwhile, continues the grand tradition of visual innovation explored by artists such as Bernie Wrightson and Stephen Bissette, giving us rich montages that, in spite of the gruesome subject matter they are often depicting, must still be referred to as “beautiful.”  Along with Animal Man, Swamp Thing is crafting an immersive mythology that stands as one of the most interesting corners of the whole DCU.

2. DETECTIVE COMICS

2011 was a vintage year for Batman comics.  Though delays hurt its momentum slightly, Grant Morrison’s Batman Incorporated has continued to impress, with a couple of great one-shot issues proving particularly memorable.  Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason’s Batman & Robin has been one of my surprise highlights of the relaunch.  Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman, meanwhile, could very well be my favourite of all the New 52, and if it keeps on going the way it is, I’d say it’s already a strong contender to rank highly in 2012’s year-end list.  But if I had to just pick one Batman comic to place in the list for 2011, it would have to be Snyder’s previous work on Detective Comics.  Bruce Wayne was completely absent, with Dick Grayson and Jim Gordon instead taking centre stage in a dark, twisted powerfully drawn by Jock and Francesco Francavilla.  The idea that Gotham City itself is a kind of antagonist for our heroes is not a new one, but the execution of the idea was as compelling here as I’ve ever seen it.  The Black Mirror, the graphic novel collecting this 11-issue run, is already poised to enter the canon of all-time great Batman stories.

1. SCALPED

Yes, I know, I’m very dull and predictable.  It topped the list in 2010, and Scalped breezes to the top spot once again in 2011.  But the crime saga from Jason Aaron and (among others) R.M. Guera has earned its placing by being the most consistently excellent comic on the shelves, month after month.  The year got off to a powerful start with You Gotta Sin to Get Saved, a character-driven 5-part tale exploring how various members of our cast would respond when faced with life-altering decisions.  Some of those choices were surprising, others were crushingly inevitable, but all made for fascinating reading.  Then, Scalped got to celebrate a landmark 50^th issue in memorable fashion, taking a break from the ongoing narrative to give us a standalone tale that nevertheless managed to concisely encapsulate the themes of the entire series.  And now we’re in the midst of Knuckle Up, where the agonising tension and the deaths of long-standing characters puts me in mind of The Gnawing, the gut-wrenching arc that helped seal Scalped’s spot at the top last year.  But perhaps the drama has even more potency this time round, tempered with the knowledge that the end is nigh, that after issue #60 the story of the Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and its residents will be over.  Savour it while you can, comic fans: one of the all-time great overlooked classics of the comic medium is reaching is coming to a close.  We’ll see if its final chapter can top next year’s list and make it a hat trick.