2014

The highlight of my year, comics-wise, was getting to bring my "1987 And All That" project over to Comics Should Be Good, a blog that has offered me a much wider, more knowledgable audience of comicbook fans than ever before, and of which I was already a regular reader for several years by the time the generous Brian Cronin invited me to be a part of it. A pretty sweet bonus of my being a CSBG writer this year is that I also got to contribute to the annual Top 100 Comics list for Comic Book Resources, the mother site that CSBG is part of. Everyone involved sent in a top 10 list, with a brief explanation as to why each title was chosen, and then the folks at CBR tallied everything up and turned it into a top 100 list for the year. Normally, I don't like to do a formal "best of" list on Comics Matter for various reasons, but because I already put one together this year for CBR, and I was excited and honored to be able to do so, I thought I'd paste my submission for that site's list here in full, copied directly from the email I sent in. Not sure yet where any of these ended up on the final list (or if they made it on there at all), but we'll see as the week unfolds.

10. The Names

Even only four issues in, The Names has already made itself stand out as one of the weirdest and most intriguing series around. Peter Milligan is writing a great conspiracy adventure, one where we get to see all the sides without fully understanding any of them. I'm also crazy about both of the heroes, a dysfunctional duo who each bring their own darkness and comedy to the story. Leandro Fernandez's elastic art is the comic's true driving force, though. It's haunting and emotive, and it perfectly heightens the book's noir sensibilities.

9. Mighty Avengers

Really, Mighty Avengers gets my vote just because of the cast. They are an unusually and admirably diverse team, and they're all fantastic individual characters who Al Ewing writes the hell out of. Mighty Avengers has an idealistic heart, a quick wit, and a serious appreciation for the superhero genre. Plus the current Power Man's superpowers are awesome. He uses the chi of New York City? What does that even mean? I'm not sure I fully get it, or if Power Man himself even does, but Ewing makes it click and I love it. Which could also be said of the whole series.

8. The Wrenchies

The Wrencies is a heavy fantasy tale, overwhelmingly imaginative. Farel Dalrymple is a singular artistic talent, drawing in a sort of warped and muted psychedelic style. It's grittily trippy, and as magical as the novel's story. Themes of childhood insecurity and loneliness are mixed with fun-loving dystopian future demon violence for an uplifting tale of near-hopeless despair. The Wrenchies is, you can tell the first time, a book that requires multiple reads, and will likely never be grasped entirely.

7. Afterlife with Archie

Generally speaking, I am neither a fan of Archie nor zombies, but Afterlife with Archie sold me on both. No doubt, much of that has to do with Francesco Francavilla. The man is a tremendous artist, and for this kind of creeping horror story in particular, his style is the perfect match. The two-page splash of Sabrina the Teenage Witch meeting Cthulu for the first time might be the most memorable single image of any comic all year, and definitely holds a special place in my heart. Robert Aguirre-Sacasa's writing deserves plenty of credit, too. He's telling a pretty straightforward survivors-on-the-run story, but using the classic Archie character dynamics to add tension and complication at every turn.

6. She-Hulk

The biggest comicbook loss of 2014 was when Marvel announced the cancellation of She-Hulk (even though the series itself won't wrap up until January of next year). Charles Soule and Javier Pulido told great superhero stories and great legal dramas in the same space, tying the two genres together seamlessly to produce something that, if not entirely new, was at the very least fresh. It had a strong sense of humor, an impressive cast, and some of the best pop comics art on the shelves. I'm going to miss the hell out of She-Hulk, and I only hope it can continue to find fans even after it concludes, because it deserves much love for many reasons.

5. Harbinger and Harbinger: Omegas

Since it started in 2012, Harbinger has been one of the most interesting, compelling titles around. Joshua Dysart's character work is phenomenal, his villain at once classic and contemporary, and his hero probably the best-written teenage character I've ever encountered. This year, Harbinger reached its conclusion with the three-issue Harbinger: Omegas, and while it's not exactly the end of the line, at least for one character, it was nonetheless a fantastic finale. Indeed, all of the arcs this year—beginning with the introduction of the @x character and leading up to the final confrontation with Harada—were excellent, a mighty fine way for a solid series to make its exit.

4. Moon Knight

Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire put together six of the hardest-hitting, best-looking superhero action comics of the year, bar none. Moon Knight isn't a character who is easy to do well, but Ellis found an angle that worked immediately, and Shalvey & Bellaire made it sing. An issue-long fight scene, an extended dream sequence, and deeply ambiguous endings are three things that would normally turn me off, but in the hands of this team they made for immensely satisfying reading. Some bemoaned the short lifespan of this run, but I think its brevity is part of why it belongs on this list. "Leave 'em wanting more" is advice taken not nearly often enough in comics, but Moon Knight is a prime example of how effective that approach can be.

3. Ms. Marvel

To create a new superhero in the either Marvel or DC Universe and have it not only succeed but truly break out is no easy feat. Those companies have such dense histories and so many well-established characters, most newcomers are quickly dismissed or forgotten. Kamala Khan isn't just new, she's in her own book, in her own city, and comes from a culture that is hugely underrepresented in the mainstream comic world. So her success, and the success of Ms. Marvelas a series, is significant for several reasons, not the least of which is that it breaks the mold of what's expected to sell. Also, it is a reliably awesome, entertaining, hilarious, heartwarming, great-looking superhero comic, so even without all other the things that set it apart from the herd, it's a standout series. It may not be my personal #1 pick, but I'd still say it's the one title that most deserves to be on this top 100 list for the year.

2. Revival

Revival is a comfort blanket. Or maybe it's more accurate to call it a pillar. My point is, you can count on it to always, always deliver. While other titles, even the great ones, have an off month here and there, Revival maintains its impeccable quality throughout. With Tim Seeley writing and Mike Norton drawing every issue, it's also one of the most cohesive and consistent books being published today. The story burns slowly but is still white-hot, a horror tale but also a small-town soap opera of the highest caliber. There isn't a single character in the expansive cast who comes across as shallow or underdeveloped; they are all full, complex, flawed, engaging people, meaning no matter who we're watching or what the situation is, our full attention is always demanded. I look forward to each new issue of Revival more than any other title I follow, and that has been consistently true since it debuted more than two years back.

1. Flash Gordon

Jeff Parker and Evan Shaner's Flash Gordon has so, so many things going for it, but above all else it's fun. And it has fun being fun, the characters and creators all enjoying themselves unabashedly. There's not nearly enough of that in comics, and what's so wonderful about this series is that it manages to have its fun without in any way detracting from the stakes of the stories it's telling. We care deeply about all three of our heroes, even as we laugh at their antics. Flash Gordon is an old-school character, and both Parker and Shaner respect that, giving the book a retro feel, yet simultaneously making it undeniably modern. It's the kind of series that makes you remember why you fell in love with comics in the first place, and at the same time gives you hope for the future of the medium. Hands down, I get more pure, unfiltered enjoyment and pleasure from reading Flash Gordon than anything else coming out right now.

Twenty-Thirteen

Today I read the last of my new comics for the year. I actually got them from the shop a few days back, but didn't have a chance to read everything until this morning. So now here I am, another year of comicbook fandom officially behind me. I guess that means it's time to talk about the best series of this year, right?

But the thing is, I'm not wild about the idea of doing a best-of list. At best guess, I only read something like 40-60 titles this year, and many of those I dropped partway through. So to pick five or ten series out of that relatively limited group and call them the best comics published all year feels meaningless. It'd be a list based on such a small cross section of everything published this year, and honestly, most of the titles I'd choose are probably on a bunch of other lists all over the Internet. Why add a bucket of water to the deluge?

Instead, then, here are some of things I noticed popping up a lot this year and liked. A list not of my favorite comics, but my favorite comics trends:

1. Blended Genres: There were a handful of really great books that spliced elements of several genres quite nicely. Dream Thief was a magical crime mystery, Six-Gun Gorilla was a sci-fi western, Pretty Deadly is a fantasy/mythological western, Revival is a horror story wrapped in a small-town drama (or vice versa), Black Beetle: No Way Out was a superhero noir, etc. Some of these are more original mixes than others, and they all strike their own balance depending on the story being told. But I'm always in favor of this practice, because straight genre stories grow staler all the time, and a simple way to spice them up is often to smash them together. There was a good deal of that happening in comics this year, and I gobbled it up.

2. Strong Teen Characters: I highlighted this idea in my PopMatters piece on Young Avengers  and Harbinger, but there were a few other series that really nailed the voices of their young-but-not-that-young characters. Archer and Armstrong, Ultimate Spider-Man, and Afterlife with Archie are all on the list, and I'm sure I'm forgetting another example or two. Making teenagers sound real and natural, finding the right mix of genuine intelligence and complete stupidity, is a definite challenge. It's much easier to boil them down into one-note characters: the angry kid, the nerd, the bully, the shy one, etc. The teens I've been reading about this year, though, have been three-dimensional, hard to define, and believably juvenile without becoming obnoxious.

3. Accessible Weirdness: I read a bunch of stuff in 2013 that was bizarre and borderline experimental, yet still offered just enough of a clear narrative hook to pull me in quick and keep me around. Some of these are relatively new and still have time to disappoint me down the line, like Pretty Deadly and Drumhellar. Others, like Twelve Reasons to Die, are already not that great overall, but because of how strange and unique they are, I stay interested and entertained. And then there's stuff like FBP, which is basically a straightforward crime procedural that just happens to involve physics that are so far over my head I couldn't begin to tell you how real or made up all the scientific chatter in that title is. It's a combination of the overly familiar and the completely unknown, and I dig it big time. All these series were strange in their structure, hard to to predict, and artistically bananas. Though they have varying levels of quality, as a group they were a bright and beautiful reminder of how much fun comics can be, and what kinds of crazy shit they get to do that no other medium can.

4. Talking About Inequality: This isn't one from within the comicbooks themselves as much as it's something that's been going on in the creator-fan online community. The long-established lack of representation of female and minority characters, creators, and other professionals in the world of comics is getting called out and criticized more and more, and all that negative attention is exactly what it needs and deserves. Unless everyone can agree there's a problem, the solution is never going to come, and while the comics industry has been slower than many to acknowledge how unbalanced it is in this regard, there's a clear momentum in the right direction now that's exciting and will hopefully roll right into 2014 and beyond. It's going to be a slow, infuriating, uphill battle to be sure. But the first step has got to be talking about it, shining a light on the problems and refusing to turn it off until something's done, until the next steps are taken. I feel like that's where we are now, and though things are still awful, they're better than they used to be if only because the discussion is taking place. And loudly.

There it is, a brief summation of what I'll remember when I think of comics in 2013. It was a good year, as far as that goes. I'm not sure I put much stock in the idea that a specific 365 days is a timeframe that's worth anything, but that's a debate for another time and place.

My Best of 2012 Thing (Not a List)

Over the past few weeks, all of the "Best of 2012" or "Top Ten of 2012" or similarly-titled comicbook lists have started to emerge, and I always enjoy reading them. You see a lot of the same titles showing up, but there's also plenty of variance and, even in the cases of series that everyone seems to adore, their reasons for said adoration differ. So I wanted to do my own take on what worked in 2012, but without making an official list of any kind. I don't read enough to definitively tell anyone what the ten (or even five) best comics of the year were, and even if I only pulled from the series I do follow, I'm not sure how to best compare/rate them. Do I split it up by limited and ongoing? What about individual issues that were astounding in the midst of not-so-spectacular runs? Do I award artists, writers, and books separately, since I sometimes love the art of a shittily-written series or vice versa? These are the kinds of needless questions I can't prevent myself from asking, so instead of doing a real list, I thought I'd just talk more loosely about my personal year as a comicbook reader and what stands out in my memory here at the end of it.

I gotta start with Rebel Blood. Now, I did a fairly extensive discussion on the blog last month about much of what I loved about this mini-series, so I'd just as soon not get into that again here. And while I am not setting this up to be a numbered list, Rebel Blood was, without a doubt, my #1 favorite comic from 2012. So, so, so much of that is because of Riley Rossmo's artwork, which I always love and was particularly on point in this book. Nobody does chaotic-but-clear like Rossmo, whose work has a very powerful kinetic energy to it. But the artwork alone doesn't put this title at the top of my list. It's a psychological character study buried in a zombie horror/action story, expertly plotted and paced by Rossmo and writer Alex Link. It has a likable but deeply flawed lead, a whole lot of dark humor, some truly brutal violence, and more than one major twist/surprise. If that doesn't sell you on it...I don't know what to tell ya. Personally, I reveled in every page of all four issues, and was left wholly satisfied while at the same time wishing there could be more. The strongest title I read all year.

As far as ongoing series from 2012, my top pick is probably Prophet. I know it's a reboot of a Liefeld character, but I have zero familiarity with the original version, so I couldn't compare the two. But even though it's not technically his character, Brandon Graham has been slowly building a one of the year's most original and interesting stories, accompanied by some truly breathtaking visuals from an amazing group of artists like Simon Roy, Farel Dalrymple, and Giannis Milonogiannis. A strange sci-fi war story about a man (John Prophet) fighting an empire that uses an army made of of his own clones, the greatest part of Prophet is the expert and expansive world-building. The story planet-hops regularly, and Graham's succinct and stylized descriptions of each new location are some of the best shit I've ever read. His imagination is vast, and literally every issue introduces numerous new places, races, cast members, and/or conflicts. It's been a surprising and rewarding experience so far, with no real missteps or moments of weakness.

If any series gives Prophet a run for its money, it would have to be Terry Moore's Rachel Rising. The first few issues of this were published in 2011, but this year was when the bulk of the series came out, and it has been consistently excellent. It's missed a month or two here and there between issues, but has always been more than worth the wait, and it's definitely the title that sticks in my mind the longest after I read it every month. There's a lot going on and the whole cast is so rich; it's easy to get caught up in and hard to forget. Again, this is a title I've already blogged about, so I don't need to repeat myself now, but Rachel Rising is also right at the top of my list when it comes to current ongoing comics.

For the last several years, a book that was similarly reliable and always a favorite was Scalped, which reached its expectedly violent and grim conclusion this year. I didn't adore where everything ended up in the final issue, but the lead-up to it had a lot of moments and events that I'd been waiting to see for ages, so all told it went out with a bang. I still haven't gone back to the start for a glorious 60-issue reread of the entire series to see how the final storyline holds up in context, but I'm highly looking forward to doing so.

If I'm talking superheroes, this summer saw the relaunch of Valiant comics, which included Joshua Dysart and Khari Evans' Harbinger. Although arguably not a superhero comicbook in the strictest sense, it's an exceptional series about a young man trying to deal with having superhuman abilities. What's so great about Harbinger is that Peter, the hero, is pretty shitty at handling himself and his powers. He's a well-intentioned and intelligent young man, but too inexperienced and angry to be responsible with what he can do, which is basically control people's minds, along with some crazy-powerful telekinesis and scary glowing eyes. Watching him make massive mistakes and then have to deal with the fallout makes for a much more realistic and compelling kind of superpowered narrative. And there's a strong supporting cast that's growing steadily even stronger and larger, plus a villain who you just can't see ever being completely defeated. Like Prophet, this is a reboot of a title I've never read a page of, but even coming into it cold it has been a gratifying and unique read.

The biggest surprise of the year would have to be Infernal Man-Thing. I've read a Steve Gerber Man-Thing story or two, but not "Song-cry of the Living Dead Man" to which this was a sequel. A sequel that was written decades ago, but only completed and published now. There is some ambitious and beautiful writing from Gerber, but Kevin Nowlan's painted pages steal the show. The way he chooses to depict Man-Thing is particularly effective, as is his a blend of the gruesome, the depressing, and the cartoonish. Much like Rebel Blood, this book is an exploration of one man's insanity and the power it has over him and those around him. I didn't really have any expectations when I started reading this, but figured a three-issue commitment for some new Gerber would be worthwhile no matter what. Luckily, it turned out to be a standout series for the whole year.

Some titles I would stick in the Honorable Mentions category are Spaceman, Dial H, Uncanny X-Force, Daredevil, Wonder Woman, and Garth Ennis' run on The Shadow. While none of these books rocked my world, they were all far more good than bad this year, and are series that I'd strongly recommend to others.

Finally, 2012 was my first and only full year of reading Hellblazer. I only jumped onto that series in the middle of last year, but Milligan's work made me fall in love right away. I was looking forward to a long future with what seemed like the stablest book on the shelves, but alas, we're now only three issues from the last one ever. I'll have to be happy with what I got (and eventually catch up on the 250+ issues that precede my introduction to the series), and what I got was several very strong stories with some brilliant, memorable, unsettling art. Most of which was drawn by Giuseppe Camuncoli, who I love. So 2012 will always be a significant one for me and Hellblazer, whether it was one of the year's best series or not. I imagine that's true for many fans, since this is the year we found out it was ending.

I guess that's it for the comicbook highlights of my year. On to the next one.